


Lessons From The Lost

by Woffles92



Category: Crimson Peak (2015)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Horror, Loss, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-19
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-04-27 04:23:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 28,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5033614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Woffles92/pseuds/Woffles92
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Allerdale Institute for Gifted Girls is a successful boarding school nestled in the heart of the English countryside. It was founded in the early 1920's on the belief that women could reach their aspirations with as much ease as men." - Exert from an advertisement for the post of a Teacher of Science with a specialism in the Biological sciences, 12th June, 1975.</p><p>Elizabeth Blake is strangely drawn to Allerdale. With an unrivaled starting salary and a spotless record of achievement, it's not hard to see why. It's an ideal place for her to begin her teaching career. However, her golden opportunity soon begins to tarnish as Allerdale begins to show it's true, ghastly self.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. November 15th 1975

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written a fan-fiction in a long time. But there was just something about this movie and these characters that really affected me and I can't stop thinking about them.

> Dear Miss Blake,
> 
> We are very pleased to write to you following your interview last Wednesday. We feel that your personality and qualifications make you a perfect fit here at Allerdale Institute and we are delighted to offer you the position of a teacher of science with Biology speciality.
> 
> On receiving a reply from you that confirms that you are indeed still interested in joining our faculty, we will send you more information regarding your contract and a calendar consisting of the dates of staff training prior to our commencement of the 1975/1976 term.
> 
> If you would be interested in taking up our offer of free accommodation in the staff quarters, please fill out the attached document and return it also.
> 
> Many congratulations and I hope to hear from you soon,
> 
> Warm Regards,
> 
> Ms Wilma Hall,   
> Vice-Principal and Head of Music Department.   
> Allerdale Institue for Gifted Girls.

* * *

 

I threw down my book and pushed my feet into my sheepskin lined slippers. On reflection, I picked up the battered copy of Wuthering Heights and pocketed it in my oversized cardigan. Lastly, I lifted the clunky silver torch that lived on the edge of my bedside table.

The corridor beyond my door was an empty expanse of black. The large art deco windows that overlook the tennis courts were of no help when the sun had passed below the horizon. I shone the beam of light down the hall following the direction that the footsteps had passed only moments ago. In the peripheral light of the beam I could see my breath rising in small puffs from my mouth. They didn’t bother to put radiators in the corridors when this place was built after the Great War. I closed the door quietly behind me, though in the silence the click sounded deafening. As I made my way down the hall there was nothing but the sound of my feet as the soles of my slippers slapped with regularity against the wood. Too noisy, they would definitely be able to hear my approach. Reluctantly, I took my feet out and picked up the slippers in my free hand.

The corridor was longer than I remembered as I slowly made my way down it. The cold felt like tiny pins pricking the bottoms of my feet. Just then, I caught a few small whispers. I rounded the corner, making sure to keep the beam of light pointed behind me. The three small bodies looked almost ghostly in their floor length night dresses. They were peering over the banister, discussing under their breath the quickest route to the kitchens. I raised the beam of my torch and pointed it straight at them.

The girls, three of them, whirled around and froze in the light like a startled deer in the headlights of my Ford Anglia. They’re small, with rounded faces. Year 7’s. I recognised only one, Amy, who was in one of my science groups.

“What are you girls doing out of bed?” I hissed, lowering the beam of light out of their faces so as not to blind them.

“We were looking for the bathroom and got lost,” the girl to the right of Amy piped up. Too confident. Too rehearsed.

“You’ve been here long enough to at least know where the bathrooms are. I want a proper answer and I want it now, before I fetch Ms Hall.” I mentally reprimanded myself on two counts. One; I should have been confident in my own authority. Two; I didn’t particularly want to be the one to get Wilma Hall out of her bedroom. Forget what the girls thought of her, she terrified _me_.

“It was a game,” Amy said almost immediately. Her accomplices looked at her with traitorous glares. “The year 11 girls said that we couldn’t borrow this month's copy of Tiger Beat until we’d snuck into the kitchens and brought back something to give to them.”

Relief washed over me. With a full confession I could put the matter to rest myself, without having to drag another staff member from their bed. I transfered the slippers to my torch hand and produced the copy of Wuthering Heights from my pocket and handed it to Amy. She took it from me without raising her eyes to meet mine.

“I want the first two chapters, handwritten, by all three of you on my desk, Wednesday morning.”

The confident one opened her mouth and out followed the sound of a potest.

“You want three?” I rounded. Her mouth snapped shut and she shook her head furiously. “Have you anything else to say to me?”

“Sorry, Miss Blake,” they all muttered out of sync with each other. I dragged out the moment as long as I could, feeling the tension growing around them.

Finally, I relented. “Back to bed.” They took off back down the corridor at a half run. I followed after them, determined to make sure that they actually got back into their rooms before returning to my own. Somewhere down the hall, a door opened and their silhouettes disappeared, followed by a gentle click as the door closed on it’s snib.

My shoulders slackened as I let out a long sigh. Even after three months, telling students off still gave me an incredible sense of dread. I didn’t want them to kick off in a hormone fueled fury but neither did I want them to crumble into sobbing wrecks.

Behind me, the wood creaked and I whirled around. Down the stairwell that I caught the girls on only moments ago, I was almost certain that I saw another shadow, just out of view. Spurred on by my earlier conquest, I fixed the torch back down the hall and followed. I padded down the stairs, careful not to make too much noise. Whoever it was that escaped the first reprimand was certainly not going to escape a second. I paused on the second floor, the senior girls dormitory, debating whether to continue down the stairs or search this floor. I peered over the banister and smiled. A dark figure slid just out of view.

“Got you,” I breathed.

_“No.”_

I whirled around to the voice behind me. The torch slipped from my grip. It clattered to the floor, turning off on impact. “Who is there?” I hissed into the darkness. I tried to regain a sense of calm as quickly as possible. I didn’t want to be tomorrow mornings entertainment. 

_“You’ll never guess what we did to Miss Blake last night! You should have seen how she jumped!”_

“Hello?” another voice, this one felt decidedly different. More solid, if you can make sense of that. A weaker beam of light found me groping around wildly for my torch.

“Miss Blake?” The speaker turned the light to her face so that I could see who belonged to the voice. Lucy Church, a senior prefect and student in my Biology class smiled at me before turning the beam back to the floor. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, thank you Lucy. Dropped my torch is all.” I flicked the switch a few times, with no luck. The fall must have dislodged one of the batteries. I gave it a quick thump against my palm but it was well and truly dead. “I’m on the hunt for some escaped year seven girls.”

“I thought you got them?” In the dimness, I could see the questioning frown on her face. “The three girls on the stairs?” 

“It appears there was four.”

“Can’t have been,” she replied with certainty, “I heard them earlier and was standing down on this level waiting to surprise them when you caught them. If one slipped away I would have seen her.”

“Oh, thank you.” I force a smile, despite the sense of unease that has settled in around my shoulders, “Guess I was chasing my own shadow. Back to bed for the both of us then!”

“Good night, Miss.”

I climbed the stairs, shaking my head. In my hand, the torch flickered into life. I almost dropped it again in surprise. I paused and took stock. The blood, being forced up with increased speed from my pounding heart, roared in my ears. _“You’re being stupid._ ” I scolded myself. There was no reason to be afraid. I was not alone, far from it. There were several hundred girls ranging from the ages of 11-18 sleeping only a few feet away from me. Despite the logic and reasoning that I tried to instill into my students, there was still a prickling that ran along my skin.

I tramped up the last few stairs and back along the corridor to my room. I reached my hand forward just as the door clicked gently open and began to make a slow arch inward. The light from my reading lamp spilled out onto the corridor. _“You didn’t close it, idiot.”_ I stepped in and locked it behind me.

The torch flickered rapidly again in my hand. I rolled my eyes and clicked it off again. I slipped off my shoes and climbed back into my bed, devoid of warmth from my absence. I reached up to turn my bedside light off. I had no further use for it tonight seeing as my book was with some scolded students and I had no desire to begin another. I paused. Some innate part of my told me not to turn off the light. That something bad was sure to happen if I did.

_“Catch a grip, Beth!”_

With a determined effort, the synapses flared into life in my fingers and I flicked the light off.


	2. November 16th 1975

 

> _Excerpt taken from the Guardian, 5 th August, 1923. “Ambitious boarding school for girls opens at Allerdale”_
> 
> _Today witnessed the official opening of the Allerdale Institute for Gifted Girls. The ribbon was cut by the patroness herself, Ms Edith Cushing. Ms Cushing, of Buffalo New York, is a renowned author of fiction but is also well known for her connection to the mining tragedy surrounding her late husband, Local Baronet Sir Thomas Sharpe and his late sister, Lady Lucille Sharpe._
> 
> _The school opens today in preparation for the beginning of term in September. Ms Cushing has taken a keen interest in the project to build the school, even down to the interviewing and hiring of staff. 200 girls are already enrolled on the books and more and more parents are said to be soliciting a position for their daughter(s) every day._
> 
> _“If there is one word that can encapsulate the idea behind the Allerdale Institute, it is hope,” Ms Cushing declared to the gathered for the ceremony. “Hope for a bright future. Hope for an equal footing in the world for both men and women. Hope for an education for all, no matter their background. Hope that from the ashes of the past, new life can reign supreme. From the hallways of Allerdale, I hope to bring you new generations of Doctors, Lawyers, Mathematicians, Thespians, Engineers and Politicians. No-one should be told that their dream is unrealistic because of their sex.”_
> 
> _Little remains of the old house which was deemed unfit for the housing and educating of young women. However, in the interest of post-war austerity, many of the building materials have been repurposed inside the new building which has been designed in the new modernistic style._
> 
> _Ms Cushing declined to comment when asked about the incident involving her late husband and sister in law on the property some 14 years previous._

 

* * *

 

I woke with a violent start. My eyes shot open. Everything in the room was a shade of deep navy, the dark of a world where the sun is only an hour from rising. Beneath my sternum, my heart was hammering furiously. I felt unbearably hot, my face flushed. What had woken me so abruptly? I remembered nothing but the dream though it too was fading fast from my consciousness. As my senses began to realign, I became acutely aware of the pressure radiating from my lower torso. I remembered snippets from my dream. A man. I closed my eyes but no face would resolve, like turning the focus wheel of a microscope without success. Instead what I remembered were the feelings; the touch of hands on skin, the heat of breath on my neck and lips on my mouth. My body blazed into life and I felt as though I were on fire. I could think of only one solution to my predicament. But as my fingers teased at the waist of my pyjamas, the clock on my nightstand fliped the next number over with a noisy click and the radio alarm fizzled into life with Freddie Mercury crooning the second verse of Bohemian Rhapsody. Something of a spell broke in the air and the intense atmosphere vanished like a popped soap bubble.

Some latent emotions from the days when I was dragged to Church remained and I felt an unwelcome sense of guilt. I used my hands instead to turn on the light. It was 6.30 in the morning. Breakfast was in an hour and I still had to shower and dress. Somewhere down the hall, I could hear a high pitched rendition of the same Queen song. It had only been out two weeks yet most of the girls knew all the words, harmonies and could accurately imitate the guitar solo if required. There was banging on the wall and shouts of protest from those still hoping to catch the last precious few minutes of sleep. I gave a little chuckle. At least you could never say that this job was boring.

“Beth, take a look at this!”

Linda Carson slid a paper wrapped parcel across the table as I stared blankly at the paisley patterned table cloth waiting for my coffee to kick in. Her mousy brown hair was immaculately plaited into two braids either side of her head. Even bound up the way it was, it almost reached her waist. Linda was an unapologetic hippy. A few years my senior, she taught drama and had become my unofficial mentor at Allerdale. Some of the girls thought she was crazy, and maybe there’s a little bit of her that was, but she had such a warmth and infectious glee that it was almost impossible to not become friends with her after only one conversation.

I set down the piece of toast that was already cold and soggy.

“Came in this morning’s post. Don’t open it too much though,” she warned with a mischievous grin. Very cautious now, I slowly lifted the wrapping off the top. I left it uncovered only long enough to glimpse the title of the book before I snapped the paper back down to hide it.

“Lin,” I gasped, “You’re going to get us fired!”

“You think you can work it into required reading for your reproduction topic?”

I pushed it back across the table as though the words “The Joy of Sex by Alex Comfort, M.B., Ph.D.” would burst into glowing neon letters at any moment.

She shrugged but did put it away from sight inside her satchel. “You can borrow it if you like, but only after I’ve finished reading it.”

She glanced up at me and laughed. I shook my head, but was helpless to the giggles myself.

A shrill bell rang and there was a uniform scraping of chairs as those still eating abandoned whatever scraps of porridge or toast were left and rushed to get bags before morning registration.

“I’ll see you at break!” I waved at Linda, taking one consolation bite of my toast before joining the heave of bodies making their way towards the dining hall door.

******

Alison entered my class five minutes late and covered in blood. It dripped in great blobs from her hair and clothes. It was as though the prom scene from Stephen King’s ‘Carrie’ that I had read the previous year had leapt off the page and come to life in front of my eyes.

 Well, in my defence, it _looked_ like blood. I dropped the piece of chalk, the diagram of the reproductive parts of a plant long forgotten.

“Oh my god, someone get Matron! Call an ambulance” I rushed toward her. She looked up at me as though I had gone completely insane.

“No, Miss, it’s just the mud,” a voice from the back of the room piped up. A ripple of giggles followed. I stood hands out in front of me feeling as though the world had suddenly stopped revolving and I’d been wrenched to an emergency stop.

“What?” More giggles.

Alison cleared her throat then spoke. “It’s been raining all morning and the ground is slippery. I knew I was going to be late so I was running and I fell.”

“But, you’re bright red!” I felt as though I’d been put inside a dream where nothing makes sense yet everyone follows the script with perfect oblivion. But even as my brain was struggling to piece together what had happened, my eyes began to see the grainy consistency that betrayed the mess as, indeed, mud.

A small paper packet with Tampax written on it came flying from one end of the room. I whipped around with a glare, “Who threw that?” Most of the girls were properly laughing now, including Alison. In the euphoria of relief, my resolve broke and I managed to smile. I scribbled a note onto a piece of paper and handed it to Alison.

“Go get a shower and a change of clothes. Come back at lunch and I’ll give you a textbook to copy up what you miss. If anyone stops you, show them this.”

“Thank you, Miss.”

The door clicked shut behind her and I was left staring at the small cylindrical packet next to the puddle of crimson mud.

“Do plants need tampons, Miss?”

That time, even I laughed.

******

The evenings were getting darker much earlier so it was easy to confuse the time under the false fluorescent lighting of the classroom. I was engrossed in a stack of essays from my A level class on ‘The importance of enzymes in digestion’ when the dinner bell rang. It jolted me back into the moment. I capped my pen and set it on top of the pile that was still unmarked. The good thing about working in a boarding school is that there was no commute and I didn’t have any reason to carry stacks of books from place to place.

The science block was on the south side of the Allerdale complex. Despite being built in the 20’s the equipment in Science had been renewed in the late 60’s so there was all the modern appliances that I could have hoped for. To get to the dinner hall, I had to pass through maths and then head towards music. As I did, strains of a most wonderful piece of music began to drift down the corridor. I approached quietly, so as not to disturb whoever it was practicing. The tune was beautiful, yet there was something about the melodic chords that made me feel deeply sad. I paused outside the door to listen for a few more moments. _She’ll miss dinner at this rate_ , I thought and put my hand onto the handle. At that very moment, the music ceased with a jarring abruptness. I jumped back and walked quickly down the corridor so as not to embarrass her with the knowledge that she had been performing to an audience. I was only a few feet down the hall before the music began to play again. _Go back and get her_. I retraced my steps. Again, as I placed my hand on the door handle, the music stopped with an uneasy suddenness. Swallowing my nerve, I turned the handle and pushed into the rehearsal room. To my surprise, I was greeted with darkness. I groped along the wall for a light switch. The black seemed to have a presence of its own and I wondered why someone would play alone in the dark. I remembered briefly that we had two blind students and assumed it must have been one of those girls.

“Just looking for the light,” I called out to the pianist as I reached further along the wall, looking for the light. With my other hand I let go of the door. Two hands were better than one.  Behind me, the door began to close, the beam slowly disappearing into an ever narrowing triangle. Just as the sliver of light shrank to nothing, I found the familiar toggle on the wall and flicked it on.

The room was empty. I looked around and then back around again, pirouetting on the spot like an uncoordinated dancer. I could confirm. The room was undoubtedly empty. And cold, bitterly cold. Slowly, I walked over to the piano. I wanted to touch the keys, to find the button that turned the pre-set barrel that must have been loaded onto it. But as I reached out, only a fingers breath away, the key hood slammed down with an almighty crash that sent the strings inside the piano into a horrible discord. I jumped back. Without giving myself time to think, I fled the room.


	3. November 16-17th 1975

> _From the diary of Edith Cushing, 1 st September 1923._
> 
> _I am desperately afraid that I have made a most terrible mistake. Tomorrow, the first girls will start to arrive for the beginning of term. Why am I bringing them to this place? I was so certain when this whole thing began. Now the doubts are beginning to weave a fabric in front of me, and I feel as though I am trapped._
> 
> _But what else was I supposed to do with Allerdale? The land is useless for growing and after the speculation and rumour of what had transpired here; very few were interested in buying. Not, at any rate, for a sum that would have allowed me to continue my dream of a school for girls. Father’s money and the royalties that I get from my publisher would not support the purchase and construction. It was Allerdale or nothing. _
> 
> _I have not seen Thomas, nor Lucille, for almost a year now. Not since the day they began to knock down the house. When I close my eyes I can still see his face, sallow and pale, watching me from our bedroom window. Even at that distance, the loneliness and sorrow in those eyes, which I had adored, was crushing. Even after fifteen years and all that I have sacrificed in the pursuit of relief, our separation still pains me in every single bone in my body. Do I still love him? Was it even really love, or simply a naive lust that we shared all those years ago? Whatever it is, it refuses to let me go._
> 
> _Lucille very rarely showed herself at all. At worst, she would lurk in corners and watch the progress of the salvage of the house. There were moments I was sure she would lash out at the destruction of everything she had tried to protect. Yet the small matter of death seems to have mellowed her considerably. Perhaps without the house to anchor them, they will simply drift off. I wish they would go. I want them to find something of rest. Both of them. Maybe then the aching will fade._
> 
> _But what if they aren’t gone? What if they resent the constant presence of my girls? How will I make sure that they are safe?_
> 
> _These if’s and buts will drive me to madness. If there is a problem, I will face it down. God, just, please don’t let any harm come to my girls._

* * *

 

My heart did not beat as I ran down the hall. I wasn’t even sure that there was a heart beneath my ribs anymore. Instead, it was as though I had contained within my breast a living animal that thrashed wildly, desperate to escape. I burst through the double doors at the end of the corridor, into atrium that connected the three levels of the school to the dining hall. At this time the hall would be loud, full of the chatter of 700 teenage girls, excitedly discussing the day’s events. But I couldn't hear anything over the cacophonous roar in my ears. I stopped at the door, my trembling fingers rested against the old wood, ready to open. A sudden realisation hit me. The door didn’t quite match the rest of the building. It must have been added later, or brought here from somewhere else as a sentimental gesture. The feeling of its cold grain was soothing against my palm.  

 _You’re being unreasonable._ The voice in my head was harsh, scolding. _There is always a logical explanation_. And I would find my explanation.

*****

“Elizabeth, I don’t mean to be patronising, but I feel as though you are being outlandish. All the girls are accounted for, so they can’t have vanished, as you say.”

I looked at my shoes, feeling much how I imagined the students did when they were being reprimanded. You didn’t have to be a pupil to feel the scorn of Vice-Principal Wilma Hall.

“What you heard was a recording. I make all of my senior music students apply for scholarships to the Royal College of music. Just this year they have changed the rules of their application process and they require a recording of their playing. No doubt my girls were making recordings and left one playing by accident when they heard the dinner bell.”

 _You’re an idiot_. I felt so small under her gaze, like a bug being scrutinised, poked and prodded under a microscope.

“If being in the classrooms late at night riles up your imagination I would suggest leaving while it is still light outside.”

“I just wanted to make sure that the girls were okay.” I offered up with meek defiance.

Her resolved softened in an anomaly of emotion. “I do appreciate your concern. Perhaps you shouldn’t read too many books, they’ll rot your head with nonsense and you’ll see monsters in every shadow.”

To her I probably was little more than a student. I only had 5 years on the oldest pupil in the room. Yet, I was a colleague and I didn’t want to skulk away from her like a dog that had been kicked.

“The voice of reason as always,” I replied with forced cheerfulness, “Thank you for bringing me to my senses,” I smiled and nodded to her in parting. I joined the queue of stragglers for the scraps of what was the evening meal.

Despite my forced positivity, the voice in my head had the last word. _Piano lids do not just fall on their hinge_. _The laws of physics just don’t work like that._

*****

“Psssst.” I turned around to see the whisperer. “Miss, have you ever read anything by Edith Cushing?”

Wednesdays were my day to man the after school study hall. It was a supervised quiet time after the final lesson to complete homework for the younger years. Those who had completed theirs were still required to remain and occupy themselves quietly.

“I can’t say I have,” I replied in a low monotone. I didn’t want to show interest. She was fishing for a reason to procrastinate.

“ _Miss_ ,” she gasped in mock horror. I flicked my eyes surreptitiously at the name on the top of the exercise book that looked like it hadn't ever been opened. Milly. Year 10. Beside it laid a battered copy of a book with a dark cover. Two figures were drawn on the cover, a young woman in a flapping gown with a dark brooding man standing just behind her shoulder. “You work here yet you have _never_ read anything by the woman who built Allerdale?”

I felt my face flush. She had a point. A pioneering girl’s school, built in the 20s of all times, was a marvel in feminism and I probably should know more about the woman who had headed it. Slowly, I lowered myself into the space on the bench beside her.

“I suppose even teachers can learn a few things. Tell me a bit about her.”

Milly grinned. I’d bit her dangling hook and had just offered her a few moments of break from the monotony of the study hour.

“Well, you know _why_ she writes ghost stories, don’t you?”

I shook my head. “Assume I know nothing about her.”

“Oh Miss,” Milly teased, “You’re letting me down something dreadful.”

I frowned, letting her know that I had a limit and she was reaching it. “Just tell me, or I’ll move off and you’ll have lost your chance to gossip.”

She gave me a rue smile. “Well, her husband and his sister and Edith lived here, in what was the old house. Allerdale Hall they called it. My grandmother used to live near here and she told me what happened. Her husband, Sir Thomas Sharpe, was trying to dig up all the red clay to sell it for building. But the house is built on the site of an ancient battle between the Scots and the English.” She leaned in close for dramatic effect, “That’s why the soil here is so red, from all the blood.”

“As a teacher of science, I feel the need to point out that the red is probably got to do with a high content of iron in the soil, but, go on…”

“Well, Sir Thomas built a machine to dig up the clay for him, but little did he know that he was actually digging up where they buried all the bodies. The ghosts of the soldiers there rose up and sabotaged the machine. It exploded, killing both Thomas and his sister Lucille. Edith was nearby and saw the whole thing. They say she saw ghostly red shadows meddling with the machine and called out in warning, but it was too late! Blown to bits was Thomas, all riddled with holes from the flying machine parts. The arm of machine fell on Lucille and smashed in her skull.”

“And that’s why she writes about ghosts?” I asked, raising one eyebrow in speculation.

“Yeah, because she’s seen them. And they killed her husband.”

“Well, thank you for that, I feel much more informed now.” The sarcasm was laid on thick, but Milly kept playing the game with dogged determination.

“No problem, Miss. I’ve got lots more where that came from. If you like I could tell you about why sometimes the tools in the engineering block go missing, or why the piano in music plays itself?”

I could physically feel all the blood evacuate my face. The skin of my arms came alive with goose flesh. It felt as though every hair on my body was trying to abandon me. _A coincidence_ , I reasoned. _All ghost stories have a piano that plays itself._

With great agony, I forced myself to smile as I got up from the table.  “Now I know you’re just making these up.”

Satisfied at her short relief, Milly didn’t protest at my leaving. But before I walked out of ear shot, she winked at me. “Sure, Miss, they’re all just stories.”


	4. November 18-19th 1975

> _Letter from Alan McMichael to Edith Cushing, dated August the 18 th, 1902._
> 
> _My dearest Edith,_
> 
> _It won’t be long until I am back with you in England and then we shall return to Buffalo together. Mother is unhappy with me for leaving again to come to you. She is creature of natural suspicion.  She is of the opinion that I should have brought you back to America immediately. I have told her that you needed to close affairs with Allerdale estate. Though I fear she does not completely believe me. We will have to be cautious and avoid her prying into this business too much. She can smell a scandal like a hound senses the fox, so we must do our best to keep her in the dark._
> 
> _I know that you are steadfast on starting out on your own, but Edith, I beg you, let me be the one to look after you as your husband. I would do anything for you. You know this. I have shown it on many occasions. But I won’t continue to repeat my sentiments to you. They have been plain to you, I fear, for many years. Let this be the last and if your answer remains the same, then I will hold up my hands with gracious defeat._
> 
> _If you were to agree, I would take care of you for as long as I have breath in my body. I am a physician of the eyes, not the heart, yet I don’t have to be a cardiothoracic surgeon to know that the one that beats beneath my breast belongs to you and only you. I cannot offer you the same luxuries that your father could have, but I offer you a plain and simple love. Together, we could be so very happy._
> 
> _Regardless of your answer, I will dock in Southampton on the 1 st of October and we will depart the following week, on the 8th for New York. Let me know that you have received this letter, and do not keep me in suspense. You are a writer. You are more comfortable with putting down words onto paper than expressing them in speech. In this respect, I feel we are matched perfectly. Take the opportunity of our distance to put your honest feelings down onto paper. _
> 
> _Your answer will determine whether or not I arrive in England as your future husband, or simply as a brother. I will accept whatever decision you make without further comment._
> 
> _Yours deeply and affectionately,_
> 
> _Alan McMichael._

* * *

 

 

I heard the approach long before the soft knock against my door. For a brief moment I considered ignoring the noise. _Go away_ , I thought, closing my eyes tight against reality. _I’m fast asleep and you can’t wake me._

It was then that I heard the sob and my resolve shattered. There was no way that I could ignore that. In the time it took me to put on my dressing gown and slippers, another feeble knock was attempted. I pulled my door open and saw the three small figures. It’s always the little ones.

“Miss, I’m really sorry,” began one, Emily. “Lucy had a bad dream and nothing we do can calm her down.”

Lucy stood behind her, enveloped in the arms of the third student whose face was familiar to me but whose name I couldn’t remember. There was a small part of me that was annoyed there was no _actual_ emergency. But that emotion was easily suppressed for the genuine distress that Lucy seemed to be under.

“Alright then,” I reached back inside the room and grabbed my torch. I had checked it several more times since the night I had dropped it on the stairs. Whatever had been broken inside and had caused the incessant flickering seemed to have fixed itself. “I know just what we need. Follow me, but be sure to be quiet.”

I walked with confidence, guiding the trio down the corridor. I had no idea if what I was doing was allowed. Perhaps if Ms. Hall caught us I would be in as much trouble as the girls. But I was doing what I felt was right and the fact that I was following my own moral compass was all the validation that I needed at that moment to continue my little quest. We descended the stairs in almost complete silence, save for the occasional sniff and squeak that issued from Lucy as she continued to lose the battle with her emotions. We finished up in the kitchen where I immediately set to work. I placed my torch, so that the beam shone at the ceiling and did a fairly good job of illuminating the room around us. I grabbed the first three things that looked vaguely like they would support the weight of an 11 year old girl; a small step for reaching high shelves, an upturned bucket and an upside down pot that looked as though it could have supported several hundred portions of soup. I arranged them into a small semi-circle and asked Lucy to sit on the bucket in the middle while the other two gathered around her.

I rattled around the kitchen, grabbing four small glasses out of the cupboards. From the industrial sized fridge I grabbed an open carton of milk and a small saucepan from a hook on the wall. I poured in enough milk to fill the glasses and turned on one of the rings on the oven. The more and more things that I started to disrupt from the immaculate kitchen, the more I felt as though I would be the one to get in trouble should I be found out. Never mind, I would make sure to fix things in the morning. I turned away, leaving the milk to heat up and pulled a chair over in front of the girls.

“Now, while that’s warming up, tell me what has you so wound up.”

For the purpose of brevity, I have omitted ever sniff and stutter from Lucy’s story.

“The older girls were telling us a story about an old school mistress, who used to go around at night locking all the girls in their room. They said that if she caught you awake at night she would lock you in a tiny cupboard and you’d have to spend the night there. They said she would often forget about girls and they would die in the cupboards. They said that after she died, she still walks the halls and you can hear the click of the bunch of keys that she carries. If her ghost sees you then she’ll lock you up and no-one will ever know where to find you. I woke up and I could hear keys on the corridor outside and I thought she was coming to get me.”

I let her speak, without interruption, all the while trying not to notice what was happening behind her. My imagination was running away with me, and the shadows behind the girls were beginning to warp themselves into familiar shapes. Sunken faces, twisted bodies and gnarled fingers made themselves out of the darkness. I smiled, marvelling at the wonder that was the brain, and looked back to Lucy.

“Let me ask you this,” I said, once I was sure she had completely finished, “If I told you that, under no circumstances were you to think of a Pink Elephant. Then asked you, what you were thinking about, what would you say?

Emily suppressed a giggle, and Lucy managed to smile. “Pink Elephants.”

“Okay. So some of the old girls in your dorm room have been talking about ghosts, ghosts with keys. What are you most likely to dream about? Ghosts. What is every creak and jingle going to sound like? Keys. Some of the older girls probably had a set of keys and meant to frighten you with them.”

I stood up and swirled the milk around in the pan. With a finger, I tested the temperature. Satisfied that it was warm enough to serve, I poured it into the glasses and rinsed the pot in the sink. As we shared the glasses out among us, I noted that it had been several minutes since Lucy had taken in shuddering breath or given a wet sniff.

“What I want you girls to remember is how this made you feel. When you get older, and you get the opportunity to scare some younger girls, I want you to remember how it can go too far and perhaps think twice.” I wondered if perhaps I could have negated the lecture, but they all nodded in unison, solemn and calm. Lucy’s eyes were red and puffy, but there was a clearness behind them that meant the hysteria had passed.  I collected up the empty glasses and rinsed them in the sink while the girls whispered a few comforting words among each other. I stopped for a moment, while my back was turned and allowed myself a smile. It felt as though a butterfly was unfurling its wings inside my chest. If I had ever needed confirmation that my choice of career was valid, here it was. This is what I was meant to do. I set the glasses to dry next to the sink and turned around. “Right. Are you feeling better?”

Lucy nodded.

“Great, then I feel like we could all be doing with going back to bed! Let’s go, and try not to wake anyone in your dorm as you go back in.” The girls stood up and linked hands like a chain. They began to retrace our steps back out into the hallway. I lifted the torch off its place on the bench and trained it after them.

Curiosity tugged at me, like an impatient child at my sleeve, and I couldn’t resist one last look. I slowly traced the light beam back into the empty kitchen. The store room that was connected to the kitchen, where I had seen the shapes before, was still in complete darkness. _You’re being ridiculous_ , I reprimanded, _there is nothing there. Prove it to yourself._ ”

With a determined slow arc, I lifted my beam across the threshold of the store room. Like the sea retreating from the shore, the darkness began to recede into the room. I kept going, determined to prove a point. The light crept back further into the room as the tiles on the floor began to reveal themselves as simple smooth stone and not the vine ridden floor of a building being reclaimed by nature. The light now almost reached to the back wall now, completely abolishing all traces of those ghostly apparitions that had danced behind Lucy as she had told me the fiction of the demented headmistress. But as I reached the far side of the room, two shadows did not recede. Their shape corresponded with that of shoes. My heart leapt up into my mouth and proceeded to cower at the back of my throat, strangling the breath from me. Out of almost automatic reflex, I continued to trace the beam of light upwards. The unmistakable hem of trouser legs.

“Miss!” I whirled around, Emily was standing behind me, she met my eyes, then lowered her’s sheepishly to the floor. “Could you walk us back to the dorms? It’s very dark.”

“Yes, of course,” I glanced back over my shoulder and without preamble shone the torch straight across and into the store room. Nothing but shelves, stacked with boxes, tins and bags.

I closed my eyes with distained relief. _Elizabeth Blake, you are as bad as the kids._

_*****_

If there was ever a Venn Diagram created of all the people who influenced teenagers, there was a very small segment in which boarding school teachers live. It resides in a connected portion between the overlap of parent, teacher and older sibling. This dichotomy of roles was never more apparent than at the weekend. Part of me envied the teachers who lived out in the surrounding villages. Though it was a significant commute, Allerdale was literally in the middle of nowhere, it did allow them to switch off from their responsibilities. Time at the weekend was our own, the school employed weekend staff to play babysitter, but it was hard to completely switch off.

Usually I spent my time reading, preparing lessons, marking, or talking with Linda. That day, it was the latter. Linda had arrived to my room in the mid-morning with the contents of another package that had arrived for her. She had an obsession with sending away order forms in the back of catalogues with cheques. This time, it wasn’t a lewd book, but a small box with a stylish blonde on the front.

She shook the box a little and grinned. “How brave are you feeling today?”

“What do you mean?” I laughed, setting aside the newest issue of Nature review. “What have you got there?”

“I bought you a present. You don’t have to use it. But it could be an experiment. Being a scientist, you’ve got to like experiments, right?”

As it turned out, she wanted to dye my hair, and dye it blonde. “I think it would really suit you,” she reinforced the point with a smile. I regarded the box dubiously. There was no way putting a bottle of harsh chemicals on my hair could ever possibly match the smile on the model’s face.

Whether out of curiosity, vanity or sheer boredom, I let her bleach my hair. It is curious the little things that set in motion the wheels of fate. Little did I know how much this seemingly innocent action would alter the course of my life.

Several hours and a ruined towel later, I inspected myself in the bathroom mirror. It was a strange feeling, to see someone who you don’t completely recognise staring back at you from a place that has shown only one thing your entire life. The woman who looked back at me looked somewhat more feminine. I also thought that it made her look more interesting than the dull brown that she had been sporting since my birth. A small smile teased at the corners of my mouth.

“It’s not exactly… _blonde_ blonde. It’s much more _yellow_ than I was expecting.”

“I think you look amazing.”

I leapt to her defence. “I’m not saying I don’t _like_ it, it’s just… not what I was expecting.”

It proved a hit at dinner that night. Many of the staff members and students complimented me on it. I revelled in the attention that it had bought me. Finally, I felt as though I was beginning not only to fit in as a teacher, but as a member of the community of teachers. Even Joseph Aster, one of the history teachers to whom I had only spoke a few words, told me it suited me. He lived on site, but being male, didn’t live in the main building. When the school had been expanded in the 1950’s, they had built a separate accommodation block for teachers and that was where any male teachers who wanted to live on site resided. His compliment, and those from the other teachers, had a strange effect on me and I spent the rest of the day feeling as though I was floating a few inches off the ground. It continued into the evening and when it was finally time to go to bed, I fell asleep grinning from ear to ear.

At first, I didn’t know what had woken me. Perhaps something in a dream had taken me by surprise. Maybe it was the call of nature. Whatever it was, it hadn’t lifted the haze of sleep was still hanging heavy in the air around me. My face was buried in the pillow wreathed by hair that still smelled strongly of peroxide and whatever else had been in that wonder bottle. That was when I felt the bottom of my bed sink in an unmistakable application of pressure. My heart kicked into overdrive and I was suddenly very awake. Gently, so as not to create any movement of my own, I reached out for the switch to turn on my bedside light. As it clicked on, I sat up with the intent of a sudden confrontation.

I got one as I came face to face with a man, sat on the end of my bed.


	5. November 19-20th 1975

 

> _Excerpt from the Diary of Edith Cushing - January 9 th 1909_
> 
> _Why didn’t you go?_
> 
> _When you faded away into the air on that morning, I thought you’d found your peace at last. Off to whatever expanse lies beyond this one._
> 
> _I can understand why she stayed. Tortured, broken soul that she was, anchored to the place that had been the object of her obsession. She lingers like a sickness, like the sickness that she let grow inside of me. It will not shift, no matter what the doctors do. Will Lucille succeed in her last goal of being rid of me? Me or her. Her or me. Perhaps it will be both._
> 
> _But why do you stay, Thomas? What is it that keeps you tethered?_
> 
> _~~If you are going to leave me, leave me entirely.~~  _
> 
> _When will this blasted sickness end. Surely there is nothing left of my insides now. Just a blackened, bleeding, rotting mess, like Allerdale itself._
> 
> _I feel the beginnings of another purge._
> 
> ~~_Make it go away, Thomas, then go with it._ ~~

* * *

 

In the first few moments, my brain made a number of very rapid assentation’s about the circumstance that I found myself in. The first of which was how appalled my mother would be if she were to discover that there had been a man in my bedroom. Secondly, what it was able to process negated my first concern because it was crystal clear that whatever it was seated on the end of my bed it was far from flesh and blood. There was a strange, almost translucent quality, like the apparition was formed from a thick, white and orange smoke. And bringing up the rear was the first sensible thought of the lot; run.

But my body was deaf to instructions. It was as though, while I was sleeping, invisible hands had forced open my mouth and poured quick drying concrete down into my body. Every impulse, every fibre was screeching out at me to do something. Yet, I was frozen in place. The only thing that I could do was to look at it. At him.

The most obvious thing about him was his colouring. Deathly pale, as though he had been rolling around in the piles of chalk dust that lay below the board in my classroom. His clothing was clearly from the previous century, billowing shirt that was stained in patches, an intricately patterned waistcoat and dark trousers. With a slow, deliberate movement, he turned his head and looked at me. The stare was piercing, and caused me to draw in a sharp breath. It was probably a good thing, I couldn’t remember the last time I had taken one. His eyes were the same colour as the stains on his shirt, a particular shade of ochre, like a blood stain that refused to wash. Below his eye was a deep wound, cracked around the edges as though he were made of porcelain. A small trail of red, like vapour rising from a hot drink, rose from the incision. Do ghosts bleed?

With all reason, this description should have been terrifying, enough for me to faint, or lose control of various organs. But his expression settled something akin to calm over me. The area around his eyes were blackened, as though it had been years since he had slept. In an unambiguous contrast to everything, the manifestation in his eyes was serene, with a hint of inquisitiveness.

 _This isn’t real_ , _I am dreaming_. That was the only possible explanation. Ghosts are not real. This much I know.

But I didn’t feel asleep. I felt the most awake that I ever had. Every nerve in my body was alert, rapidly firing signals back and forth. My brain stumbled again, picking again a most inopportune comment for the situation at hand; when had I last been this close to a man that wasn’t a member of my family? It must have been months. The majority of staff at Allerdale were female, and it was an environment that I felt comfortable in. I had two sisters, and a mother at home. Father was a stranger who I only saw several times a month. He was in business, and spent most of his time travelling the globe selling whatever it was he sold to people in faraway places. Mother didn’t talk about boys much except to tell me how much trouble they were. My education on the subject of reproduction had come at the hand of my roommate at University whose breadth of knowledge on the subject and her willingness to share had shocked me to the point where I was sure nothing of that nature would ever shock me again.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw him move and it jolted me back to whatever reality we were both inhabiting at that precise moment. The movements he made were graceful, controlled, languid. He held out his hand toward me, palm up, as though he was offering to lead me across a ballroom in a waltz.

My hand shook as it travelled out to meet his, almost beyond my control. It was the first time that I had been able to move my limbs for what felt like an age. Tentatively, I touched the apparition. He was solid, yet, not? He felt like marble, like silk, like ice, and like nothing at all. Was this caress on my skin a phantom touch, or was this really happening? His porcelain hands dwarfed mine. With a very smooth motion, so light that there was almost no pressure, he turned my hand over so that I was the one with my palm facing the ceiling. His eyes swept up to mine and he held them for a moment with an expression that I couldn’t read before training them back onto my palm.

He lifted up his other hand and the fabric of his stained shirt moved soundlessly. With a careful glance up at me once again, as though to make sure I was paying attention, he traced two straight lines on my palm. I cannot tell whether or not it was the shapes that he was tracing which deceived the nerve cells in my skin, or whether or not this dream of mine was actually causing a sensation on the flesh of my hand. He repeated the gesture. One straight line, transected in the middle by another at 90 degrees to the first.

“T, the letter T?”

A small curve of his lips seemed to soften his hard, chiselled features. He returned to my hand, beginning to transcribe more letters with his frozen touch.

H… then an O, M, A and S.

“Thomas. Your name is Thomas?” He smiles, the corners of his thin mouth carve into the stone cheeks creating a visage of pure joy. It’s as though sunlight is radiating around him, through him, from him. The apparition seemed excited now, the tendrils of his stark white curls bobbing slowly, and started to trace more letters.

E…D…I…T…H…

His face was expectant, his eyes intense, as though this new word should have unlocked something inside my brain. There was a flicker of recognition somewhere in the back of my mind. Why was that name familiar? I furrowed my brow.

“Who’s Edith?”

The radio alarm by my bed crackled into life, playing an acoustic guitar song that I didn’t recognise. I snapped my head around to check the time. 6am. _I am awake_. With an equally quick gesture, I turned back towards Thomas. He was not there. With trepidation I rocked forward onto my knees and examined the spot on the end of my bed. Was it my imagination, or was there a disturbed patch in the blankets? I placed my hand onto the end of my bed. Maybe a little cold, but maybe not, I couldn’t quite decide. A scent lingered in the air, but it too proved illusively vague. With a heavy flump, I sat back heavily onto the bed. The springs screeched in protest. I hugged my knees up close against my chest and stared at the spot where I had seen him. I gave a cursory pinch of the skin on the back of my hand, just to check that I was awake. I was.

I passed through Monday as though I had never truly woken up. The lessons I gave were vague, my instructions brief and confusing, my explanations mix-matched and contradictory. Normally my lessons were timed to perfection but now I was being interrupted mid speech with the bell, which would give me a fright. The girls could sense my distraction and were more restless than I had ever seen before. When the final bell went and the last class left my room I sat down heavily in my chair and let my head, thick still with confusion and spectres, fall into my hands. On top of everything else now was guilt. What if something that I had covered today were to come up in an exam? Was I really cut out for this job after all if one vivid dream can shake me so much that I manage to flub an entire day of lessons? Would my discipline regimes be completely undone?

“Elizabeth?”

I looked up at the door. Wilma Hall towered in the doorway in her normal grey blazer and skirt combination.  

“Yes?” Had one of the girls said something? _Miss Blake can’t teach us at all. She can’t control us and she makes no sense_.

“A tough day?”

I nodded as she swept into my room, picking up a dropped pencil and setting it back onto a desk.

“How are you finding it here? You seem to be coping very well. You’ll get a few days where you want to bang your head against a wall, but they pass.”

“It’s good, I just don’t… feel myself today,” I admitted ambiguously. She gave a sage bob of her head.

“I just wanted to talk to you quickly about a small matter. It’s nothing serious, I just wanted to offer a bit of advice.”

Despite the kind way in which she was putting across this little pre-amble, I felt a quickening in my chest. So I was in trouble. Or at least, in that small window of grace just before you get into trouble.

She continued. “I was speaking to a year seven, Lucy Porter I believe her name was. I just happened to overhear something in one of my music lessons and asked her to elaborate. As I understand it, she was upset a few nights ago and you came to her aid?”

“The other girls got a bit carried away with a story about ghosts and she got quite frightened.” I said this nonchalantly, hoping that if I didn’t act as though I’d done something wrong, there wouldn’t be an issue.

Wilma pursed her lips a little. “Very noble of you. While getting out of your bed at night to assist a student who is upset isn’t against any rules here, I would say that it’s unwise.”

I swallowed, though all the moisture in my mouth seemed to have had better things to do at that very moment in time.

“You can be _too_ kind in this profession. We’re about training these young ladies to be productive and independent members of society. If you are too soft, they’ll come to you looking you to sort out every little insignificant problem and you’ll never have a moment to yourself. My advice is, that next time there is a little knock on your door, or whispers, or the padding of little feet, to pretend that you are asleep. They’ll thank you for it in the long run.”

I nodded, to show that I had heard her and that I understood.

“I’ll let you get back to your work then.”

As she left, I let out the breath that I had been holding. I should have considered her words carefully, pondered over her advice. But even before her footsteps faded from my ears as she walked down the corridor, in my head, I had already returned to my room and the events of last night.

Thomas. Edith. Who did these names belong to? Why were they familiar? Better still, how could I find out more?


	6. November 20-21st 1975

> _Letter from Dr. Frederick Motte to Dr. Michele Beyer, dated 3 rd April 1885_
> 
> _Dr. Beyer,_
> 
> _I am writing to you with upmost urgency, with regard to a patient in my care of the name Miss Lucille Sharpe. It is my understanding that on reaching her 21 st birthday, Miss Sharpe is to be discharged from the institute. _
> 
> _As her physician it is my professional opinion that Miss Sharpe should not be released. She is a very ill woman who is suffering from a sever neurosis brought on by significant childhood trauma. Despite her outward appearance of sanity and composure, it is my belief that she is of a highly manipulative disposition._
> 
> _As the chief physician of this sanatorium her case files cannot have escaped your notice. Although never officially charged with it, it is very probably that she caused the violent death of her own mother aged only 14. I strongly suggest that if she is allowed to leave our care that it is very probably that given motive, she will repeat these actions and may cause the death of more innocents._
> 
> _Her best place is here where we can continue her treatment. I suggest that she be submitted for a new variation on Electrotherapy. I believe strongly that this can reshape the malformations in her brain that have led to her violent and manipulative tendencies._
> 
> _I wish you to retract your earlier letter of discharge with immediate effect. Miss Sharpe is a very vulnerable young woman and I fear for her safety and the safety of others. Please do not ignore this letter._
> 
> _Sincerely,_
> 
> _Dr. Frederick Motte_

 

* * *

 

 

To get to the History corridor, I had to pass through Art where a group of girls were partaking in an after school class. I’d never had cause to be up in this part of the school. Normally, I stuck to my own classroom, or that of Mrs Snow – the senior science teacher who gave up a great amount of her free time to walk me through lessons and topics if I was stuck. For some reason, it felt warmer, almost cosier. The corridor was decorated with work that the girls had done, sample propaganda posters from either the First or Second World War, I couldn’t tell. Some were excellently designed and written very persuasively. I peeked inside the first room but found it empty. Disappointed, I carried on down the hallway, past another display of old war poetry.  In the second classroom I glanced through the open door and struck gold.

Joseph Aster sat at his desk, hand on his forehead as he squinted through his glasses at a stack of books. I noted that he couldn’t have been more than five years my senior. Definitely couldn’t have been over 30. Not wanting to startle him, I knocked lightly on the door frame.

“Mr Aster, is now a bad time?” I asked, using his surname in that half joking way that teachers do when speaking to one another in the presence of students. There were none in the room, yet it seemed a good way of breaking the ice. He looked up, a tad startled. He took off his glasses and his face relaxed into recognition.

“Elizabeth, I almost didn’t recognise you. Your hair is still unfamiliar.” He leaned back in his chair and waved his hand to make it known that I was welcome into the room. Some teachers were picky about their classrooms and didn’t want other teachers in their space, their sanctuary, snooping. It was clear that Joseph didn’t have these scruples, or at any rate didn’t feel threatened by my presence. “How can I help?”

I cleared my throat and began. “I was wondering if you knew anything about the history of Allerdale? I thought a history teacher was a good enough place to start.”

“Oh, well, Ancient history is more of my strong suit; Vikings, Romans, Greeks, but I can tell you what little I know.” He sounded contrite, as though he too wished he knew more.

“Whatever you know will be helpful. I feel bad about working here and knowing virtually nothing about it.”

“Well, it was founded in 1923 by Edith Cushing--…”

“That’s where I’ve heard the name before!” I blurted. That explained why my dream had suddenly produced the name. I remembered back to the study hall when I had talked with Milly about her book. _Isn’t it funny how the subconscious can latch onto the most seemingly insignificant details_ , I thought. As I looked up I noticed that my outburst had startled Joseph. I muttered a quick apology and placed a finger over my lips to indicate that I wouldn’t make a repeat of it. 

“So you’ve heard of her then?” he inquired.

“Yes, she was a writer, wasn’t she?”

“As far as I know. Though I’ve never read anything of hers. Unless the story is based in historical fact, I’m afraid fiction and I don’t get along well.”

I remember thinking at this point that at more prudent point I would suggest some of my favourite books to him in the hopes of changing his opinion. “Is there any connection to the name Thomas?” I asked, assuming a casual air.

“That would be her husband, Sir Thomas Sharpe. Died only a few months into their marriage.”

Now the conversation with Milly came flooding back to me in its entirety. A grisly tale about exploding machinery killing both Thomas and his sister, though her name escaped me.

“The Sharpe family owned the land that this school is built on. They mined it for the red clay that gives the soil around here its distinctive red colour. But after he died, so too must the ideas of mining. There was a twenty year gap before she created the school. I can only suggest that it was partly uncertainty and reluctance to use property belonging to someone who’d only been her husband for a matter of weeks. Then the Great War possibly disrupted plans for several years.”

“That’s a lot for not being your speciality,” I remarked playfully. He shrugged his shoulders and an almost imperceptible redness bloomed in his cheeks. “That is the sum of my knowledge on Allerdale, save for the fact that it was updated again in the 1950’s. Parts of it are made from the old house, the doors into the dining hall for instance. I think that might be salvaged from the original front door of the house. Why, if I might ask, the interest?”

I fed him the same excuse I’d given myself for getting embroiled in the conversation with Milly. “She was a pioneering feminist, to make sure women got a great education as early as the 1920’s. Seems only fit to know a bit about her.”

“Ah,” Joseph sat up, looking a little more alert. “Emmeline Pankhurst and the suffragette movement. Something I am a little more familiar with. I asked, when I first started here a few years ago if we could include that in the syllabus.”

“Would you have asked for that module in an all boys school?” I asked, perhaps with a bit too much bite. My words were Linda’s echoed from my own lips. On the surface, she was flower power, dreamlike and softly spoken. A gentle drama teacher who hardly ever raised her voice. But underneath she was a storm of outrage for injustice. I’d lost count of the number of conversations we’d had on the role of women.

“Did you know that women in Switzerland only got the right to vote three years ago? They’re famous for their pacifism in war, but not as it seems their forward thinking.”

He was ignoring the question, and I wasn’t going to abandon it. I pursed my lips. “No, I didn’t. But you’re avoiding my question.”

He leant forward a little, as though he was about to tell me a secret. “I’m not at an all boys school.” I rolled my eyes a little and he chuckled. “Perhaps I would have asked, but I don’t think I would have had as easy a time of it as I do when I teach it here.”

“We don’t teach because it’s easy,” I countered. I was struck by my boldness. Would he think me impertinent for trying to tell him how to do his job when he had been doing it years longer than I had? Had I gone too far with our little back and forth?

“Touché. Well, I hope that I helped you in some way. I’ll keep an eye out for anything about Edith and the Sharpe family and pass along anything I come across?”

“That would be really helpful, thank you.” I straightened. “I’ll leave you to your work now Mr Aster.”

“Anytime.” I went to leave, and as I reached the door, he spoke again. “And Elizabeth?” I turned. “It’s Joe.”

“Beth.” I nodded in parting and went down the corridor with a strange sensation bubbling in the pit of my stomach. I’d got something of a lead on the names from my vivid dream. Was it excitement that I was feeling at the prospect of delving deeper into my own subconscious?

I didn’t have too long to consider this because as I walked past the art room, my name was issued. Some of the girls wanted to show me what they had been working on.

“What do you think, Miss?” Olivia asked, presenting me with a small clay jar that she had been working on in the after school club. It was crude but effective and was decorated with flowers along the side.

I took a breath in to give my diplomatic answer when I caught a scent that almost knocked me over with sudden memory. The brown clay that they were moulding into pots with varying degrees of success smelt exactly the same as the scent that I had hung in the air when I had woken from my very peculiar dream. Behind my eyes I immediately saw him again in his pale and ochre brilliance. The detail was exquisite, his piercing dazzling eyes, shock of white hair, even down to the individual trails of blood smoke that left the open wound on his prominent cheek.

“Miss, are you alright?” Concern filled her voice. Her hand hovered near to my elbow as though she was preparing to grab me if I fainted. I blinked, brought back to reality, and the vision of Thomas vanished.

“Sorry,” I shook my head to clear the remnants of the image but it was burned onto the back of my eyelids, like when you’ve looked at something bright for too long. “I don’t feel very well today.” I lied.

Olivia nodded with a shared understanding that comes to all women after they hit puberty. I didn’t bother to correct her because what would be the point? I wasn’t even sure that I could tell Linda about all the strange things that had been happening recently, let alone a student.

“It looks lovely though,” I added, then walked around the room, giving everyone else’s efforts a similar level of attention. If I was honest with myself, I wasn’t really looking at any of their art projects. I was thinking instead of a man in white with a hole in his face.

*****

I carried the hot mug of tea up to my room just as another teacher passed down the hallway, knocking on doors and declaring lights out. I nodded to her as I passed and went into my room. Today had been very strange and I was exhausted. Keeping my brain barely functioning after my peculiar dream had been more of a challenge than I had been expecting and it had thoroughly worn me out. I closed my door, slipped off my dressing gown and beneath the cold sheets I continued to re-read Wuthering Heights until my cup of tea was finished. Then, I turned out the light.

A noise. I shot up, immediately alert. For an inexplicable reason, I wanted to call out the name that was on the edge of my lips to the empty room. But it was an idiotic notion. He wasn’t real, a figment of my overactive imagination and the product of being in a strange environment. I was in the infuriating space of consciousness where I couldn’t tell if I had been sleeping or just about to drift off.

The silence was broken by soft footfalls on the corridor beyond my door. I reached out, instinctively to turn on the light. Groping around in the darkness, I found the switch and flicked it on. Nothing. I repeated the motion several times. The switch clicked into and out of position but there was still nothing. My heart raced. Panicked now by the apparent power outage, I flung out my arm in a desperate search for the torch that Mother had always taught me to keep within arms reach in case of emergencies such as these. My hand knocked against it and sent it flying across the room. I jumped out of bed and followed the sound of it rolling across the wood floor. Reaching down I paused, trying to think above the roaring in my ear. There was an unmistakable sound of small metal items clinking gently against one another. Like coins in a pocket. Or a cluster of keys. I held my breath. Was this the sound of the older girls trying again to scare the life out of younger ones? I pressed my ear against the door, hoping to catch their whispers as they plotted.

The voice was almost inaudible. Like a breath of wind just barely making it through a crack in an unlatched window pane. I picked up my torch and tried to turn it on. This too was dead. _Damn the wiring._

 _Edith_.

The torch in my hands that I thought had died began flickered into life, then continued to flash on and off in a quick succession that illuminated my room for only a few brief moments at a time. I stood back, pointing it at the door and tapping it sharply against my palm to try and fix the connections.

 _EDITH_.

As I shone the shaky beam at my door, I became suddenly aware that each time the light switched on, a shadow would appear on the back of my door. The blood in my veins, all ten pints of it, suddenly turned to liquid ice. Through each juddering flash, the patch of darkness grew and began to take on recognisable shapes.

Light off. Light on.

A skeletal hand reached out through the darkness, the forbearance to a much larger shadow. Slowly, the outline of a person emerged.

Light off. Light on.

The silhouette advanced towards me and I could now make out more detail. A dress, elegant and ominous, an intricate bodice above a skirt of many layers.

Light off. Light on.

A head, and what looked like a face, sunken and pure black, like the flesh had been burnt to cinders.

Light off. Light on.

Two eyes, pupil, iris and sclera all pure black, so dark that they managed to make everything else in the room appear brighter. They glistened in the light. One tiny pin prick of white in the vast pits of nothingness.

 _He is mine_.

The voice was a serpent hiss and I was certain that it had emanated from the open hole that must have been the mouth. I was clutching my torch so tightly I was sure that I was either going to dent the metal casing or break my fingers.

_Forever mine._

Light off.

I could feel her approach like the advancement of a wolf on an unsuspecting rabbit. The air around me was thick, like a freezing fog, descending to cover the room in its icy embrace.

Light on.

It lurched towards me with a sudden and ferocious dive, arms stretched out, fingers clawing, reaching out for my face like it wanted to scratch the very skin from my skull.

Light off.

Suddenly, my bedside table light sparked into life, flooding the room with its yellow tinged aura. The shadow was gone. Nothing remained to even suggest that it had ever been there at all. I stood, motionless, staring at the spot where it had just been. It felt like an age, but eventually my muscles began to thaw, slowly, then all at once. I took a juddering step backwards. My muscles had no power. I collapsed against the frame of my bed. My chest was screaming and I took a gulp of air, choking on it as though I had been drowning.

As my heartbeat resumed something of a normal pace, I felt my jaw begin to tremble. The torrent of tears that came next were an inevitably that always followed after a sudden departure of adrenalin. For a while I just sat there, tears sliding slowly down my cheeks. _This can’t be happening_. But it was and there was only one explanation.

I was going insane.


	7. November 21st 1975

> _Exerpt from the Times, Wednesday, February 12 th, 1902 – Disaster at Allerdale_
> 
> _It was been reported that earlier this week a disaster had occurred in Cumberland._
> 
> _Allerdale Hall, owned by the Baronet Sir Thomas Sharpe, has been put under a great cloud of sorrow. Sir Thomas, recently married to heiress Ms Edith Cushing of Buffalo, NY, has perished in an accident on his land along with his sister, Lady Lucille Sharpe._
> 
> _Reports surfaced that a mining machine that he had been working on to restart the famous Allerdale clay mines experienced a malfunction of disastrous proportions. The machine is said to have exploded during a demonstration. It killed Sir Thomas and his sister Lucille while injuring his wife Edith and a visiting friend of the family, Dr Alan McMichael, also of Buffalo NY. The injuries to Ms Edith Sharpe and Dr McMichael are not said to be threatening to life, though the former is also said to be suffering from a prolonged illness that Dr McMichael had travelled from America to treat. The injuries suffered by the now deceased Sharpe siblings are too graphic to describe in this publication. Our condolences go out to the bereaved Ms Edith Sharpe at this time._
> 
> _The funerals of both Sir Thomas and Lady Lucille will take place on Friday the 21 st of February at Cumbria Cathedral._

* * *

 

 

Time had no more meaning as I sat on the floor, my cheek resting against the cold frame of my bed. I was sick. I had to be. But who could I tell? There was no way that anyone at school could be let into my dirty little secret. Linda would tell me it was stress and would give me some incense to burn before I went to sleep. Mrs Snow was a good teaching coach, but not very personable when it came to anything outside of the classroom. I didn’t even want to give the notion of telling Wilma Hall any thought. There was no-one. I was utterly alone in my own madness.

Perhaps I would book myself an appointment to see a Doctor. A horrible image of them dragging me away in a strait jacket popped into my head, as though I were a victim of a bad horror film. I tried to be reasonable about it, they probably wouldn’t drag me away then and there. They might talk to me, listen to me. Then they would hand over medication that would render me incapable of functioning normally. That, or they’d drag me off into a nice room where all the sharp corners had been rubbed away.

My bedside light flickered again and I closed my eyes against the oncoming terror. _Oh God, not again._ Was my light even flickering, or was this some rapid failing of my optic nerves?

I opened my eyes and my heart stopped dead in my chest. Before me was the pale figure, crouched down as though approaching a frightened, wounded animal. Thomas. The smooth stone of his brow was creased, his eyes full of concern. He reached out to me with one of his marble, translucent hands.

“You’re not real,” I whispered to the manifestation before me. My voice caught in the expanse between anger and despair. “Go away. I am sick and you are the sickness. You are not real!”

His cold fingers brushed imperceptibly against my forehead as he swept aside the still unfamiliar yellow hair that has been plastered against my forehead with sweat. _But he feels so real_. My delusion was so quick to progress that I was able to imagine phantom touches.  He held out his palm again, and I was too tired, too scared, too lost to refuse. We repeated the motion from before and he began to transcribe on my palm.

 _Not sick._ He told me. _Real. Ghost._

Ghost? I sat up a little straighter, lifting my face off the metal bed frame. I had never given the possibility of ghosts real consideration. They were made up fantasies to terrify siblings and explain anomalies you were too lazy to investigate. But this revelation could be everything. I grasped at this notion, this life raft, to keep me from drowning in my hopelessness.

If ghosts were real, then I was not mad. If ghosts were _not_ real, then I was sick beyond help. The rational part of my mind wrestled with these thoughts. _Do I give up on all that I’ve known just to believe that I am well? Or do I doggedly refuse to accept the possibility of spirits and leave myself in the cold resolve of madness?_ All the while, I stared into the tawny eyes that lay level with mine, sunken into two dark hollows.

_Could you be real?_

I reached out my hand, up to touch his fractured cheek, willing, for the sake of my own sanity, to feel _something_. My fingers made contact and the small gasp that followed was involuntary. He was so cold. He closed the two dazzling eyes and leant into my hand. A lost child finally receiving comfort. The pressure against my palm increased slightly and I couldn’t tell if I had taken another sharp breath, or he had made a noise akin to contentment.

“How can this be real?” He reached out his hand and held my face in a mirrored image. The breeze against my cheek was refreshing. Struck by a sudden and unconscious urge, I pressed harder onto his cheek. _How real is real?_ I tipped the balance between what his manifestation could support and my fingers passed through. It felt like scraping the thinnest layer of morning frost off a window pane. His skin parted like smoke, splitting apart into wisps that reformed as soon as I withdrew my hand. Until then I hadn’t imagined it possible for him to have looked any more broken, but I was mistaken. The look in his face shattered my fragile heart.

“Does it hurt?” I asked dumbly. I immediately scolded myself. _There is no such thing as a dumb question_. I always told my students that, and it was time that I lived by my own rules. When you were discovering something for the first time, any scrap of information, no matter how seemingly ridiculous, was invaluable.

He shook his head and took his hand away from my face as though he couldn’t bear to touch me any longer. Slowly, he settled down into a sitting position opposite me, his legs folded underneath him. He watched me then, patiently, a chess opponent awaiting my next move.

“Okay.” I huffed out a quick breath as I readied myself to accept this new information. “You’re a ghost? You’re dead?” He nodded, twice, each movement a slow but definite bow of his head.

“You’re Sir Thomas Sharpe? You lived in Allerdale Hall?” I had to get the facts straight before I could interrogate anything new.

His face crumpled again and I half expected a ghostly tear to run from his spectral eyes. He held out his hand again, a desperate longing on his face. Again, I let him take my hand.

 _Edith_. He wrote. _Remember. Please._

For some reason, he seemed to think that I was his wife. Edith Cushing. The woman who had torn down the ancestral home of her husband and turned it into a school.

“Can’t you speak?”

He retrieved his hand and placed it on the smooth curve of his throat and closed his eyes. With a violent gesture his lips peeled back and his jaws opened wide in a guttural mime of a scream. But it was silent. Powerless. He composed himself again and looked back to me with sadness weighing down his features. As if to confirm what was already apparent, he shook his head. He reached out again, tapping my hand impatiently. More ghostly letters were carved into my palm.

 _Edith. Remember me?_ This time he even punctuated our crude method of communication. I raised my eyes, trying to hold my own composure for his sake. It was nearly impossible to not feel the shattered yearning from his expressive face. But I had to tell him, didn’t I? Had to let him know that he’d gotten it wrong

But, what if he went away? If the only thing keeping this spectre tethered to earth was the knowledge that his wife was still here, would he just slip away into the ether? If he left, then there would be no more nightly visits. I wouldn’t be able to discover what exactly he was. This could be revolutionary. In the history of the earth, no-one had managed to _prove_ the existence of supernatural beings. By very definition they defied nature. But what if _I_ could change that?

I considered my words very carefully. Clearly whatever he was, he was sentient. He could understand words, could process thoughts and had palpable feelings. How did one go about lying to something like this?

“I… I’ll try.” The words caught in my mouth, like they were made of syrup. I had always hated lying. “To remember. I’m sorry, it’s been so long.”

His face lit up, his lips carving into a smile that was even more crushing than his sadness. It was infectious though, and despite myself, I began to smile also.

Until I remembered _her_. Clearly my expressions were as transparent as his. He stopped smiling. Distress replaced delight.

“If you’re real,” I began, the words spilling from my lips as they entered my head, “Then so is that _thing._ ”

He turned his head away then, not wishing to look at me. It was all the confirmation that I needed. The demonic void that had pushed through my door, hissing malice, was real also. Was that the _real_ Edith? Had she died under horrific circumstances? Doomed to haunt the halls of knowledge she had so selfishly created? Was this why Thomas had convinced himself that I was his wife? Because he would rather lie to himself than face the truth of being trapped in the afterlife with the vile thing that had crashed into my room? I tried to swallow but fear had lodged itself in my throat and refused to let go, strangling me from the inside.

 _I’d rather be mad._ If I accepted that the pale, sweet Thomas was actually real and not some manifestation of a sickness in my brain, then I also had to accept that vile skeletal monstrosity. The terror was returning, creeping up into the back of my eyes where it burned with threatened tears. I couldn’t go through that again.

“Don’t let her hurt me,” I begged. My pleading tone of voice made me feel weak. He kept his chin out over his shoulder, his eyes cast to the floor. Then, almost imperceptibly, his colour began to fade and I realised too late what was happening.

“No!” I half screamed, lunging forward into the space where he was. I slammed my hand against my mouth, hoping to muffle the thunderous noise that I had just made. By the time I had flung myself into the spot on the floor, he had completely gone, vanished like fog burnt off by the morning sun.

“Come back,” I whispered to the emptiness. I reached out and touched the floor, feeling the cold left in his wake. “Don’t leave me alone.”

I waited, but what for, I wasn’t sure. On the wall, the seconds hand of my clock ticked slowly from one position to another, each juddering click sounded like thunder in the sudden expanse of nothing. My small room had never felt so large and empty.

“Thomas?” I pleaded. If I hadn’t been mad before, I certainly was now. Pleading to a vacant room for one ghost to protect me from another. If the terror hadn’t been consuming me, it would have been such a ludicrous notion that I would have barked out a laugh.

One last try. “Please.”

In answer, the torch that I had dropped on the floor earlier rolled slowly towards me, as if pushed by unseen hands. Its progress was painful, but as it reached me and fell gently against my leg, it turned on with a strong, bright beam of light. Anger filled my chest. How on earth was this lump of metal meant to protect me from things beyond the grave, things beyond my comprehension? I picked it up anyway, my meagre weapon against the vengeful dead and held it tight against my chest before climbing back into my bed.


	8. November 21st 1975

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to use this opportunity to thank everyone for their continued support of this story. Your reviews have been an amazing to read and I hope you're all still enjoying this. I don't know exactly how long this journey is going to be but I am looking forward to having you all along for the ride!

 

 

 

> _From the diary of Edith Cushing, October 14 th 1902._
> 
> _I am an utterly selfish woman. How can I willingly refuse the hand of a man who cares so completely for me? It’s shameful. Alan has done so much. Too much. Some things I won’t even dare to put down on paper. Those things remain hidden and secret in my heart. Maybe I will talk about them one day, but not yet, not for a long time. But some of it I must share, must spill out the knowledge before it fills up my head and causes it to burst. Perhaps I will burn these pages afterward. Perhaps the act of writing it down will be cathartic enough._
> 
> _It’s been nearly a year now from the disaster and I have just received a letter from Alan. He is coming to get me for the last time and bring me home to Buffalo. It will be nice to see the familiar streets again. And the house, oh, how I long to be back in my house. Even if Father is no longer there. Allerdale holds nothing but ghosts for me now. Literally._
> 
> _But he has proposed again and it breaks my heart to have to tell him no. I don’t want to hurt him. But I must, for my happiness, and ultimately his. I have no doubt that I could grow to love him deeply, but it would never be the all-consuming love that he deserves._
> 
> _At least this will be the last time, or so he says._
> 
> _Luckily, he’s not the type to hold what happened over my head. Lesser men would threaten to reveal the truth of what he had done for me. This will never leave the pages of the book, but he helped me preserve Thomas and even Lucille’s good name. It meant too much to them, their name, despite all the horror that it had brought them._
> 
> _I can still see his lifeless face as I dragged the body out into the snow. Even in death, his face distorted by Lucille’s rage, he was so beautiful. It was insanity now that I recall it. Both of us were near to death’s door and yet, I couldn’t let the world find out the truth.  I had to conceal them, shelter them. Out of madness, or misery, or both. We laid them in the snow, next to each other._
> 
> _Then, we sabotaged Thomas’ marvellous machine. His life’s work, the thing he and Lucille had married and murdered for, torn apart by a few loosened bolts and carelessly placed tools._
> 
> _It was easy then to explain away their deaths to the crowd who had followed after Alan’s reckless expedition from the Depot._
> 
> _I will be forever grateful for Alan. Forever. But I simply cannot be his wife. I have been wife enough for one lifetime. In my limited experience it seems to cause nothing but pain._
> 
>  

* * *

 

I didn’t sleep that night. There were three hours left of it and I spent them wide awake. In the end, I read. But it was not the pleasurable, immersive experience that I had come to love. Instead, I found myself unintentionally reading and re-reading paragraphs, being ripped from my concentration by every little sigh of breath or creak of floorboard.

It was exhausting, expecting to be terrified at any moment. My heart never truly calmed down from the moment that Thomas left me. By the time my radio turned on to herald the morning, I felt truly and utterly drained.

By this time I had accepted that what I had been seeing was not a figment of my imagination. But I knew also that accepting I was not already mad did not give me assurances that I would not become so. I gathered what strength that I had to drag myself through the day. At least it was Friday and when the final bell rang at 3pm I would be free from the responsibility of the lessons that I was to teach. Being free of ghosts, I suspected, would take considerably more than the shrill ring of a bell.

But the question that burned bright beyond my fatigue was clear. Did I actually want to be free of them? Sure, the whole affair was mildly terrifying, but it was also probably the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me. My whole life up until that point was a slow progression of tick boxes. Everything had been done as it was supposed to be.

When the final bell did eventually sound, the students began to make their way out of the room. The feeling was a lot more subdued than that of non-boarding schools. Instead of excitement and elation, there seemed to be a more relaxed and universal sigh of relief. The exception to this was the youngest that I taught, year 7’s. They were 11 and 12 and still hadn’t succumbed to the hormones that seemed to suck enthusiasm out of them.

I was settled into mark a set of books. I’d already looked through them pretty recently, but I wanted something to keep my mind busy. I thought everyone had left but a small noise caused me to jump and look up quickly. Everything had me on edge, yet I felt ridiculous for being scared by a student. It was Lucy, the girl I had helped to calm down.

“Miss…Can I talk to you?” she began. I thought that I heard a tremor in her voice, but it was probably because she was about to admit that the book in the pile in front of me didn’t contain her homework.

“Of course,” I replied, forcing a smile through my exhaustion, “What’s the matter?”

It can’t have taken more than a few seconds but her small face went through a variety of changes. They all happened too fast for my foggy brain to process but I could tell that there was more going on than first appeared.

“I have to tell you,” her sentence stopped then, as though the words had been stolen from her mouth by unseen hands. I sat up straighter, feeling my heart begin to thump in my chest a little more restlessly than usual. The pause dragged out, carrying my concern with it.

“Lucy…are –”

“Have to tell you thank you for helping me the other night,” she interrupted in a flurry of words that tumbled from her mouth.

“You’re more than welcome but, is that everything?” There was no way that she should have been that worked up over a simple thank you. She nodded then, too quickly, her smile too big.

“Yes, I’ve got to go now. Just wanted to say thank you.” Without waiting another moment, she turned and walked quickly from the room, her brown curls bobbing furiously to keep up with her. I stared after her, long after the sound of her quick steps had disappeared. All things in perspective, it wasn’t quite as strange as some events over the previous days, yet, it still was odd. But kids were odd, it didn’t take very long to work out as much. I tried not to dwell on it too much and decided instead to carry on with my marking.

The heating was broken in the school, not in the sense that it was too cold, but they had defied explanation and gotten the heating stuck in the on position. It created an oppressive atmosphere. I felt as though my eyelids had weights attached to them. But I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t want to close my eyes in this school anytime soon. I got up and opened a window. Outside, even though it wasn’t much past four in the afternoon, the darkness was beginning to creep in. I returned to my desk hoping against hope that the breeze would keep me awake. It didn’t.

Somewhere in the middle of the book stack I must have closed my eyes for just a moment. But apparently that moment was all that I needed. Sleep grabbed me with her eager fingers and dragged me down into her depths.

“Now, isn’t this better, my darling?”

I looked around, trying to find the speaker. The light was blinding and it took my eyes a few moments to adjust. As it did, I began to make out shapes and colours. The ground around me was a vivid green, the sky a faultless blue. I was sat on the ground wearing what appeared to be a long dress of yellow taffeta. Beneath me was spread out brown blanket and there were cushions set around in a circle, places set for absent friends.

“Edith?”

I turned to my right and saw him. His face was familiar and there was no mistaking those eyes. However, much to my amazement, they were a bright sapphire, instead of the arresting ochre. His skin was unmarked, no longer alabaster but a perfect canvas of pale pink. His hair was black and smoothed back elegantly.

“Thomas?”

He grinned and it had even more of an effect on me than before. “You remember.” His voice was deep and rich. It had a tangible quality, like running silk through your fingers. His accent was British and unmistakably upper-class. “I hope I didn’t startle you.”

“What’s going on?” I drank in the sight of him, then our surroundings. We appeared to be in some sort of park. Pathways cut through the green expanse, trees moved soundlessly in a breeze that I couldn't feel.

“Well, I’m afraid that this is the best solution to the problem of our communicating,” he said, leaning forward and taking my hand. He drew a line down my palm, and then folded my fingers inward. He met my eye and held it with such intensity that I felt like I was being hypnotised.  “A little faster this way, I think.”

“I don’t understand, where are we?” For the first time I realised that my voice sounded unfamiliar in my head. The pitch was slightly higher, and my words were more nasal and the words clipped in odd places. Was this, American?

“Everywhere. And nowhere. You’re dreaming Edith.”

Dreaming. But it felt so real, so unlike any other dream that I had ever had. I had so much control over my actions. One thought burned in my mind. I had to make sure he believed I was his Edith. If he stopped believing then he would stop visiting and I would never find my proof.

“How are you doing this?” I asked hoping to focus all conversation on him and not on me.

“I’m not really sure,” he pushed out a small breath through his smile, the smallest trace of a laugh. “But it seems to be working.”

“Why are you still here? In Allerdale, I mean.” I kept the questions going. There was no way I was going to waste an opportunity like this. I had to find out as much as I could.

He frowned and turned his head slightly to the side in bewilderment. “For you, of course.” He picked up my hand in his, wrapping long fingers around mine. He moved his thumb is small comforting circles. The sensation was wonderful. For the first time in a very long time I felt something flicking into life inside me. A sense of being wanted. “Though there are a few things that I don’t quite understand. Firstly, the house. It’s so different and I get lost quite easily.  Why is that?”

I froze. What would I say? Would he be able to tell that I didn’t know anything? “I think you know why.” I held my breath, waiting to see if my bluff would stand.

He made the same small laugh again but this time the look in his eyes was regretful. “You’re right, of course. That place held nothing but madness, rot and horror. And it was yours to do with as you liked after I…” He trailed off but he didn't need to finish the sentence. _After I died_ , is what he could not bring himself to say. “There are always so many people here. Why are there always so many people here?”

“I wanted to make a difference,” I tried, adding layers to my pretence. Did ghosts get angry? What if he discovered that I had lied to him? Would both he and the other spirit be seeking some sort of retribution? I shuddered at the possibility.

He looked up at me. “But… they’re young. You brought _children_ into a place with her?” He looked wounded but I could tell that it was not me that had hurt him. It was something more than that. Like he was admitting to something deeper, something hidden. “You know what she’s like.”

He looked sharply up then to the side, as if he had heard something. But there had been no noise. If anything, the place was eerily quiet.

“You have to go,” he breathed, his words hurried and panicked. With a very sudden movement he knelt in front of me and grasped my face in his warm hands. “Find something silver. Keep it with you. Stay safe, for my sake.” Then, he kissed me. It was a quick movement, a brief but forceful crush of his small lips against mine. He pushed me away almost as quick as he had embraced me and looks deep into my eyes. “You have to wake up now, Edith. Wake up, now!” Before I had time to respond, the scene began to dissolve and I felt as though the ground had opened up beneath me and I was falling backwards into a great abyss.

I woke with a start. My head flew up from where it had been nestled on the pile of unmarked books. It took me a few moments to realise that I was back in my classroom and that I was actually awake. I rubbed at my eyes, trying to brush away the confusion that was nestled into my eyes like small grains of sand.

Behind me, a small noise. A noise that I had heard before many times. The hollow clack of a piece of chalk hitting the tiled floor. Slowly, I began to turn around. As I did, I saw the words. Written in white, with jagged angry strokes. Three simple words but three words whose meaning was crystal clear.

_He is mine._

Another noise, from the other side of the room. I whirled, my arm knocked into the books and sent them sprawling across my desk and onto the floor. But I wasn’t looking at them. I was looking at the back corner of my classroom where _she_ was standing. She raised a skeletal arm, wisps of black trailed up and disappeared into the air, and pointed. I couldn’t tell if she was pointing at me or at the board. But I wasn’t going to stick around and find out. Without a second thought, I fled the room.


	9. November 21-22nd 1975

> _Letter from Lucille Sharp to Thomas Sharpe. Date unknown. Unposted._
> 
> _My dearest Thomas,_
> 
> _I know that they do not post these letters. Why would they? They think we are all steeped in insanity and wish to contain the contamination by any means possible. But if I do not at least pretend that this will reach you, I fear that I really will go mad._
> 
> _They treat us here as if we are somehow the guilty ones. As if we brought this on ourselves by some wicked deed. But how can those things we do out of our greatest loves, be evil? Nature is wicked in her ways, cruel and unyielding; the fox eats the baby hare and the moth devours the butterfly. Only the strong survive, yet, no-one calls it madness or evil. It is simply nature. We are the strong ones, Thomas. And we will survive. No matter what._
> 
> _Today, I had the smallest glimmer of hope. Dr Beyer mentioned in passing that after I reach my twenty first birthday I will no longer be bound to remain here. If this is true, the joy that fills my heart is too great to even begin to describe._
> 
> _We will go back home. Both of us. We shall make that place our own. We shall raise the Sharpe name out of the dirt where Father left it and make it new again. There is everything we need right below our feet. The clay will make us our fortune back._
> 
> _How I long to see you again, dearest brother. Perhaps it will not be so very long after all. And when we do see each other, at our beloved Allerdale, I shall sing you lullabies in the attic once more and together we will be complete._
> 
> _With great affection,_
> 
> _Lucille._
> 
>  

* * *

 

 

There was no way that I could return to my room, and there was certainly no chance of venturing back into my classroom. I needed to be with other people. Surely there was safety in numbers? Few ghosts in history have come storming into a room full of people.

If it hadn’t been for the excited Friday chatter, I was sure that my entrance would have cause a commotion. In my haste, I’m sure I nearly crashed through the door. Other members of staff gave friendly nods as I made a beeline for the self-service kitchen. A fresh pot of coffee was only half empty so I grabbed the biggest cup I could find from the communal cupboard, dumped in two lumps of sugar and poured the fragrant black liquid on top.

I didn’t even like coffee. But, these were unusual and frankly desperate times.  

I collapsed onto one of the sofas and let my breath out for what felt like the first time since breakfast. I had spent the whole day teetering on the edge, rocking back and forth between exhaustion and hysteria. The seat next to me became suddenly occupied and a fresh wave of relief washed over me. I was very happy to see Linda.

“You don’t look so good,” she opened bluntly, “Rough day?”

“Something like that,” I replied, not entirely wanting to start a conversation about it.

“Kids?”

I shook my head. “Didn’t sleep well.” I was mostly the truth. I just conveniently left out all the stuff about vengeful ghosts and ghosts who thought they were married to me.

“If you like, I have a wonderful lavender and camomile candle that I could give you? Works a treat for me.”

Instead of immediately thanking and accepting her generous offer, I reproached her. “You leave a candle burning while you fall asleep?” It seemed like a recipe for disaster. She threw her head back and laughed. Her mirth seemed to chase away all the shadows that were looming in the corners of my mind.

“Of course that would be your first thought. I’m not a complete idiot. They’re small candles so they never last long and I keep them in a glass jar with holes in the top. Safe as safe can be!”

“Almost,” I countered with a raised eyebrow, “All the same, that’s really kind. I think I will.”

I remembered then his worse, said in such rush as our dreamland had begun to dissolve. _Find something silver. Keep it with you._ I racked my brains. Did I own anything silver? Most of my jewellery, the expensive real metals were boxed up at my parents’ house. I didn’t see the point in bringing them when I hardly ever wore any pieces. Besides, they were all gold. Always gold.

“Lin? Have you by any chance got anything silver you could lend me?” It sounded such a ludicrous and spontaneous request. But I should have known her better than that.

She reached out and tucked a strand of blonde hair behind my ear in her overfamiliar way. “For bad spirits? Are you sure you’re okay?”

I nodded and offered a small smile. It felt weak and unconvincing. “I’ll be okay. Just feeling a bit out of sorts.”

“I have a charm bracelet that I could lend you. Real silver. I’ll go get it and the candle for you now.” She got up and disappeared out of the room. I gave another sigh. Surrounded by people in this way had a very cathartic effect. I didn’t feel so trapped, so afraid, so alone. My mind wandered back to my dream. It had been so impossibly vivid. How exactly did it all work? How could he invade my dreams in such a sentient way? I was used to my night-time imaginings being complete nonsense. But this had been so all-encompassing, except that was, for very small details such as the too bright colours and the curious absence of background noise. All of a sudden, a horrible thought pounced on me and pinned me to the ground in fright. _If he could get into my dreams, could she?_

The feeling of relief that had been creeping slowly into my subconscious vanished in an instant. Could she hurt me? If I could feel the tender touch of Thomas’ hand, if I could taste the salt from his lips, then what did that mean for pain? Could she drive a vengeful blade through my heart as she repeated that same haunting phrase, _He is mine._

“Beth.”

I jumped, suddenly wrenched from my grizzly thoughts. Joe was standing over me, his glasses low on his nose and a piece of paper in his neat hands. “Sorry, did I startle you?”

“My fault, I was miles away.”

He sat down beside me in Linda’s vacant place. He smiled at something unshared. “Is it bad that my first instinct was to ask you a question? It’s something I always do to daydreamers. They quickly learn not to space out in my class or they’ll end up answering all the questions.”

“I prefer to go and stare at the ones who aren’t paying attention. Get as close as I can without saying a word. The longer it takes the louder the rest laugh. It’s the little things that keep us sane I suppose.” I could feel myself beginning to calm again. Our conversation was so wonderfully mundane. It was comforting.

“This is a complete coincidence but this was dropped through the door of the boarding house yesterday.” He handed me the typed yellow page. I was sure that this bright leaflet would have stuck out in the mail delivered to the male teachers lodging house. Men were notoriously bad at correspondence so it couldn’t be a common occurrence to get mail.

The leaflet was advertising an exhibition in the nearby town of Thursby, on the History of the surrounding area.

“I thought you might be interested, especially after our conversation yesterday. If we’re lucky there might be something on Allerdale.”

“We?”

He shrugged. “I thought I might as well go. It’s probably prudent of me to know at least _something_ about the local area. Besides, it might be a good trip for the girls, they could do a project on it!”

“Sounds great.” My heart gave a few excited flutters. Answers, perhaps, about the mysterious spectres who were tormenting both my waking and sleeping mind.

“Also, I’ll enjoy the company, those country buses take a dreadfully long time. They seem to stop every few feet to pick up empty air.”

“There’s no need for a bus, I have a car!”

He clapped his hands together once in glee. “Excellent. You wouldn’t mind driving, would you? Only, I never learned. I haven’t ever had the need or inclination. The thought of having something that powerful in my hands doesn’t appeal to me. Are you free tomorrow? It’s very forward of me to suggest going straight away, but if we go early in the exhibition’s run, it makes it more likely that I can get a trip organised for my classes.”

“No, tomorrow suits me fine,” I replied with a grin. It would be great to get out of the school for a change, especially in light of recent events. Most staff spend their weekends away from the actual school and it would save me the horror of being alone and waiting for the next small sound or ambush by the spirits.

“Shall we say, ten in the morning?”

“Sounds perfect. I’ll meet you at the car. It’s the slightly rusted blue Ford Anglia.”

Joe made his goodbyes and left the room with the Latin teacher, John York. Linda was back in the seat beside me before the fabric on the sofa had even begun to recover its resting shape.

“What was _that_ all about,” she enquired with an overly excited tone. I rolled my eyes to abate her enthusiasm.

“Nothing much. Sort of a history project. Besides, he doesn’t want to have to wait around on the buses, so I’m just doing him a favour.” I don’t know why I made the last part up. For some reason, I wanted to down play the whole thing. In reality, I should have been trying to talk about it with enthusiasm. Anything to take my mind off ghosts.

“If you need the sex book, I’ll have to go back upstairs and get it,” she teased without mercy at a volume which I was sure was nearing a shout.

“Lin! Shush!” I begged. She just smiled before passing me the bracelet and candle. I put the latter up to my nose and took in a lung full of the sweet and calming scent. Then, I examined the bracelet. It was a truly lovely piece. A thick curb chain with various small charms that were spaced unevenly along the length. I examined a few of the pieces. A flower, a butterfly a terrier dog and an umbrella. I supposed each thing told about a specific memory but without asking about each one individually I didn’t think I would be able to get a full picture of the sentimental value. “Thank you so much,” I said at last.

“I just hope it helps.”

The evening bell rang and people began to move, making their way to the dining hall for dinner.

“Shall we?”

***

Wrapped in my nightgown with the bracelet on my wrist, I lit the candle. It was late, past eleven and my head throbbed with an exhaustion migraine. I had left it as late as possible before retiring to bed. Ms Hall expected the staff that lived on site to keep reasonable hours. We couldn’t expect the students to follow our example if that was to roam the halls until the small hours. Or, at least, that was the excuse she gave.

The flame flickered a little at first, then settled into a strong flame. I put it in the jar that Linda had also given to me and secured the lid. Air holes let in the oxygen and gave somewhere for the calming vapours to escape, while allowing relative safety surrounding the open flame.

I slipped under the covers and turned out the lamp. The candle left me with only the smallest of yellow glows reverberating around the room. Reflexively, I fingered the charms on the bracelet. It was superstitious nonsense, I knew. Yes, silver was a useful metal. It tarnished slowly making it ideal for decoration. It had even been shown to have antibacterial properties. But as for keeping back the souls of the restless dead? Ridiculous. But then again, I would have said the same of ghosts until a few days ago.

For a long while I lay there, lost in thought as I stared at the hypnotic movements of the candle behind the glass. My heart felt as though it was taking up too much space as I anxiously waited for Thomas’ promised talisman to fail. As if reading my thoughts, I heard a noise on the floor of the hall beyond my door. It was the quiet jingling of metal on metal. A bunch of keys, gently colliding against each other in time with someone’s step. It was the exact same noise that I had heard before my first encounter with the black woman. I held my breath. The noise got louder, coming closer. I clutched at my blankets, though how I expected that to help was beyond me. The noise stopped. Was she outside my door? Waiting. Mocking. After what felt like an age, the noise began again, but this time it grew faint. Then, nothing. It had gone. I waited still longer, not daring to hope that I was free. Somewhere in that waiting I must have closed my eyes because the next thing I knew I was waking to the radio.

No interruptions, no hauntings, no visitors in my dreams. Nothing. It had worked. I almost couldn’t believe it. But what about Thomas? Did the charm keep him away? Did the good disappear with the bad? I didn’t have time to dwell. I had a busy day ahead of me.

Joe and I made easy small talk in the car. He told me a little about how he had ended up a teacher – it was the family trade – and what made him decide to work at Allerdale – the salary. We exchanged anecdotes about things that had happened in our respective classrooms. It was a welcome relief to get beyond the walls of Allerdale and Joe was good company.

When we got to Thursby we left the car in the carpark belonging to the small medieval church and made our way to the village hall where the exhibition was set up. We split at the door to spread out and ease our search for interesting things that his students could do their projects on. I made my way slowly down the left of the room, eyeing the displays. The first was one from the first and second world wars. Pictures of men, boys, who had fought and died from the village and a little bit about each one. Next in the line was a display about a priest from the village in the 1800’s who had managed to solve several murders that had taken place in the village.

“Beth!” Joe’s cry punched through the quiet.

I snapped my head up. Several people, also surveying the exhibition also looked around to see the cause of the disturbance. Up to that point, there had been nothing above a whisper. I crossed quickly. As I got closer, I saw that he was pointing at a display. Perhaps he had found one about Allerdale Hall after all. He turned and gawped at me, like someone that had just witnessed a magician perform an astonishing sleight of hand.

“Look,” was all he said, redundantly. I had already spotted it. At first glance, my mind perceived it as a mirror. But it wasn’t. The colour was wrong for a start. Everything appeared sepia. The angles were too different. Then, I understood. It must have been a photograph. My eye’s slid down the impossibly familiar face to the typed label below. _Edith Cushing_ , _widow of Sir Thomas Sharp of Allerdale Hall._

After a long while, Joe finally asked, “Why does she look exactly like you?”


	10. November 22-23rd 1975

> _Letter from Eunice McMichael to Margaret van der Woodsen. 13 th October 1903_
> 
> _My dearest Maggie,_
> 
> _This morning we went to the docks to wave Alan off. That idiotic brother of mine has gone back to England for her. I don’t know what nerve she has to show her face in New York after the way she stole Thomas from underneath my nose. But, I do suppose that she has come out rather poorly from this whole thing. We were friends as children and although she hurt me very badly over the whole Thomas affair, it would be very unchristian of me to have wished this dreadful outcome upon her._
> 
> _But Alan needs to be careful. He cannot spend too much longer running after her like a lovesick dog. If he carries on in this manner then he will simply have to marry her to save his good name. Widow or not, you simply cannot spend too much time in the company of a woman who does not have a husband without it being suspect. Edith would do well to accept, even if I loathe the idea of having that strange creature as my sister in law. If she wasn’t still observing mourning I wouldn’t be surprised if he returned to America already married to her. She will be no trouble though. With her mousey nature and her books and her pens. She’ll be a recluse and we won’t have to worry about her much. With the exception of the odd family affair, but I dare say I can survive that._
> 
> _That is all for now. I will write again before the McMaster ball on Saturday. I may need some advice on which gloves would be the most appropriate for the dress I have chosen._
> 
> _Much affection,_
> 
> _Eunice._

* * *

 

I stared into the cup of tea, watching the pale brown liquid as it slowly moved around the white patterned cup. There was a bit of scum that skidded along the top of the drink. A downside to living in this part of the world. Even the damned water is hard.

“Have you any family in this part of the world?” Joe asked, speaking for the first time since getting me the tea. We were sat at the far end of the hall where a few tables and chairs had been set out for the local women’s institute to sell tea and scones to people at the exhibition in aid of one cause or another.

“None.” I puffed out a breath. “My mother is from Oxfordshire and my father from London.”

“Grandparents?” he urged, sounding almost as desperate as I felt. Perhaps he was as eager to learn the truth as me.

“As far as I know my dad’s parents grew up in Whitechapel. They still live on the same street they were born in. I’m nearly certain it’s the same for them only, they both grew up in a town in Oxfordshire called Thame.”

But it couldn’t be a coincidence. It was impossible. The latest thing about genetic research that I had come across in the Nature journal had suggested that there were tens of thousands of genes from which we inherit our characteristics and that those genes had many different variations. It was statistically impossible for DNA to align the same way twice in two people. It just didn’t happen. Except, it had. Because I looked exactly like the woman in that photo. The founder of Allerdale Institution for Gifted Girls, Edith Cushing.

“I just don’t understand it,” I breathed, picking a crumb off my uneaten scone. “Maybe it’s just one of those crazy things, right? You read about them every so often in the paper. Someone arrested for a crime they didn’t commit and when they find the real perpetrator they discover they’re twins, separated at birth, or something like that.”

“But your twin was born in the late 19th century. You’re the biologist, Beth, but I’m nearly sure that is impossible.”

It was impossible. But that word was staring to lose its meaning to me. Ghosts and twins separated by almost seventy years were clearly something that I was just going to have to accept.

I forced a smile and sent it in Joe’s direction. “Maybe there is no explanation. It’s just ‘one of those crazy things’.” I wasn’t going to drag him into my twisted little world if I could help it. The sooner we dropped this the less likely he was to find out what was actually going on. It was better that at least one of us preserved our sanity.

We finished up our tea and I forced myself to finish the scone despite the fact that the food tasted like sand in my mouth. The journey back to Allerdale was much quieter. After a while I turned the radio on. Anything to drown out the silence and the thoughts that were running around in my head. Everything was called into question now. Who even was I? Was this some accident of birth? Some crazy science experiment? Or just pure and unadulterated coincidence? Whatever the reason, I couldn’t ignore the facts. I must have been drawn here for a reason. My mother had thought me mad for moving up to Cumbria, the furthest I’d ever been outside my front door. Perhaps I’d been called. There was something going on here and however much now that I tried to hide behind scented candles and silver charms, I didn’t think I could hide forever.

I lay in bed and stared at the bracelet on my wrist. Answers. What I wanted, no _needed_ , were answers. But there was only one person who could possibly give me the answers that I was seeking. Unfortunately, he had a rather nasty side effect that seemed to lurk not too many paces behind him. With an anxious thumping of my heart, I flicked at the clasp of the bracelet and let it fall off. I reached out and set it onto the nightstand. I closed my eyes and lay back hoping that it was Thomas who would get to me first.

“Edith!”

The colours settled in around me, arranging themselves into a scene different from the first time. Instead of a quaint picnic, this time we were in a large inside room. Every wall was panelled in a decadent wood, the ceilings carved and the floor inlaid into a floral pattern with different shades of wood. There were candles lighting up the wall.

He crossed the room with long, hasty strides. His hair was slicked back, and he wore a dress suit, tails and a silk bow tie atop a crisp white shirt. He gathered me up with his hands, pulling me to him until our bodies were pressed against each other and lowered his face to mine. I should have stopped him then, corrected his mistake. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. The feelings were too strong. There was something about me that wanted him to kiss me too badly. To feel the euphoria churning up from the pit of my stomach all the way to my throat. To feel every single cell in my body burning into life. He placed his lips over mine and our mouths melded together in a kiss that easily dispelled the rumours of Victorian chastity. Even though I _knew_ this was a dream, I could swear I could feel every taste bud.

“You should have left it on,” he said, the words breathed in the infinitesimal space between us. His forehead was crinkled in concern as he broke away from me. “It won’t take long for her to notice that you’re not protected.”

I took in a deep breath. “Thomas, we need to talk.”

He smiled, his eyes crinkled at the corners in the most heart-breaking way. “I’ve missed talking to you.”

I closed my eyes to steady my resolve. I _had_ to do this. There was no point in keeping him in the dark any longer. “Thomas, I’m not who you think I am.”

He frowned, more from confusion than anger. “Edith, I don’t understand.”

“I am not Edith.” I stopped and studied his face. His reaction was unreadable. Just more confusion. “Thomas, the year is 1975. You’ve been dead for nearly seventy years. And I am not your wife.”

He took a step back, letting his arms fall from my waist. They hung limply by his sides, and by the slump of his shoulders I knew that he had taken the words to heart. I could feel the place where his arms had been around me, now bare and cold. Now that I’d begun, I coudn’t stop. The truth was like a dam of water that I’d been holding back and now that the supports had been weakened, the walls crumbled. “I’ve seen the photographs of her. I know I look exactly like her and I don’t know how it’s possible but it is. I am not Edith.”

“Impossible,” he breathed. “You are mistaken. How could you be anyone but my Edith? Is this just a cruel joke?” Anger flashed behind his eyes, though he didn’t let it distort his face.

He studied me then, properly, as he would assess a stranger during their first ever conversations. I counted my breaths as I waited for him to puzzle through the quandary. After a very long moment, he reached out his hand and ran the backs of his fingers along my cheekbone. I felt as though something was going to burst inside of me but I didn’t know if it was from excitement or sorrow. Somehow this small gesture stemmed the sense of loss that I was feeling. I didn’t want it to stop.

“I’m no scholar,” he began as he moved on to a strand of my hair. He ran it through his fingers, as though testing to see if I were real. I had to keep reminding myself that this was a dream. But how could it be? Everything was so concrete and vivid. “But I do believe it was the Egyptians who first proposed the idea of reincarnation. Perhaps that is it. She was such a strong soul, it doesn’t surprise me to find that she lingers on. She and I were linked, bonded together. If she now lives on through you then, I suppose I am bound to you now as well.”

I closed my eyes. There was no way that this could end well. It was like he was determined to mistake me. I didn’t know what was worse. That I had had gained his affection through unjust means, or that I liked it.

He took me again in his arms. This time was much more hesitant, unsure.

A smile, as he warmed. “Well, we best start at the very beginning. Do you waltz?”

Without waiting for a reply, he placed my right hand in his and placed the second on my waist.

“I do believe this was the moment that I first fell in love with you. Let me see if I can make you remember.”

My feet were not my own as we glided along the floor to an imagined 3/4 beat. He was like an elegant black swan, gliding over a lake with seamless perfection. Yet, I couldn’t take my eyes from his. They were seas of emotion and I felt like if I stared too long I might fall in and drown. But that didn’t matter. I was so euphoric that if I did end up drowning right now, at this very moment, I could be sure that I died happy. Our feet made no sound as we swirled around the room, turning endless tight circles but never once feeling dizzy.

Loud footsteps cut the silence like a razor. Thomas faltered his footing and looked up with sudden fear. Our dance came to an abrupt end. The magical illusion around us was shattered and lay in pieces at our feet.

“What is it?” I asked, his concern piquing mine.

“Her. You’ve got to go. Got to wake up.”

“Stop,” I commanded, putting a hand on his chest to steady him. “Tell me who she is!”

He looked down at me and once again his face fell into a mask of pain. “You really don’t know.” He glanced around quickly. “It’s Lucille, she’s my sister and… I… we…” he looked almost as though the words were burning him, “it’s complicated. And we are out of time.”

Over his shoulder I saw the black figure emerge from the shadow of the hallway beyond the ballroom.

“Go!” he urged and I could feel the familiar falling sensation take hold of me and pull me down once more into the floor. Our hands slipped slowly apart fingers brushing against each other delicately as the room blurred.

I woke with a start. The footsteps of Lucille’s approach merged seamlessly from the dream into reality. The steps were on the landing outside my room. I lunged for Linda’s bracelet that I had set on the bedside table. I grasped it in my hands and fumbled in the dark with the clasp. Did I have to wear it? Or was it enough to hold it in my hands? The footsteps stopped. I held my breath. Again, after a long moment, they faded away along the hallway again.

I breathed a sigh of relief and let myself sink into the pillow with relief. Tonight, I was safe. But there were too many questions that were still unanswered. Who was Lucille? Why was Thomas so afraid of his own sister? The most important of all, how was I connected to this unending nightmare?


	11. November 23rd - 24th 1975

_Unmarked letter. Dated September 1903._

_My darling._

_This letter will never find you. I will never post it. But these innermost feelings must be put down into writing before they rot my insides._

_Know this: I love you and will always love you. You grew within me, but I fear that I am not strong enough to help you to grow now that you have left me. I have been tainted by darkness and I never wish you to experience it. My world has been touched by pain and loss. You are too pure and precious to know such things. That is one reason why I am giving you up. The other is much more selfish. Your face will always remind me of ghosts. I could try my best to bring you up and to love you with every beat of my heart, but you need a mother who looks into your eyes and who sees you, not the dead._

_I have met the people who will be your parents. It breaks my heart that two such loving people cannot have a child of their own. But the world is a mysterious place. They will love you and show you a much brighter world than I ever could. I wish you every blessing my darling girl. Perhaps we will meet some day, in this life or the next and I will explain everything to you. Until then, this is my goodbye._

_Your mother._

* * *

 

 

The next day was Sunday. An impossible day to get anything productive done. I wanted to go into town again, to visit the library, the public records office, anything to try and find out more about these people.

Edith Cushing. Thomas Sharpe. Lucille Sharpe.

Two of them were haunting both my night-time’s and my daytimes. Should I be worried about them? No-one had hurt me so far. Lucille was trying her best to scare me to death, but the effect was beginning to lessen. I probably should have been concerned with my mental well-being. After all, I was spending most of my waking and sleeping hours thinking about ghosts. If I attempted to tell anyone about what had been happening, they would have me committed. Certainly I would be fired. No-one who was speaking with spirits should be put in charge, however briefly, of young and impressionable minds.

Part of me wanted to tell Joe, to confide everything in him. But at the same time, there was something exciting about keeping everything to myself. My own little adventure. My own little secret.

Sunday breakfast was always interesting. There were two. An early, cooked breakfast for those who would walk down into the village to attend the small church. It was an incentive thought up by Mrs Hall and Ms Patchett, the deputy and the headmistress to encourage the girls to invest in their spiritual lives. The school wasn’t partnered with any religious organization like a lot of other boarding schools so they had no power to force the girls to go. It worked for a surprising amount of the girls, but not all. There was a second, cold breakfast later in the morning. Boxed cereal or fruit. Most of the staff used the second or made their own breakfasts in the staff kitchen.

Linda had gone out yesterday while Joe and I had been at the historical exhibition and bought the necessary ingredients for making blueberry pancakes and was currently watching one like a hawk as it slowly cooked.

“I picked this up from the post box for you,” she passed me a small envelope.

I looked at the small manila piece of paper. The front had been hand written in black calligraphy. I very rarely got any letters. Perhaps it was an early Christmas card from a relative? I began to tear open the seal.

“I got one too,” she continued, nudging a pancake with a spatula, “Mrs Hall’s husband, he is a professional photographer. This time every year he holds a show, using one of the school halls. It’s a big event, lots of famous artists and critics come to see and everyone gets dressed up and eats small squares of toast with some form of animal paste smeared over the top, pretending like it’s a proper meal.”

I opened the invitation properly and examined it. True enough it was an invite to the exhibition. “Do many of the staff go?”

She raised one eye brow and looked at me out of the corners of her eyes. “ _Everyone_ goes. It’s supposed to be optional, but she’ll find a way to make your life a misery if you don’t. No-one warned me in my first year, and she’s only just beginning to get over it. For months afterwards I was made to cover almost all of the lessons for sick teachers. I hardly had a free moment and it was so stressful.”

“That… doesn’t sound fair.”

“It wasn’t but, you live and learn.” She flipped the circular disc onto its other side and smiled at the perfect brown colour. The blueberries were starting to turn to jam and the smell that was radiating from them was magnificent. We resisted eating until we both had a stack of own.

“Have you got plans for today?” she asked when she was done, collecting up our plates. I took them off her with a shake of my head. If she cooked, I would wash.

“Not really. Though, I need to go to the library to check a few things for my lessons later in the week.”

The Library was open on Sundays. There were several of the prefects who volunteered to man the desk. Usually they just got on with studies and when an occasional student arrived to take out a book they stamped the return date and took the card from the book and put it into the corresponding folder in the little drawer.

Aside from the student manning the desk, there was no-one else in the Library. “Good Afternoon, Miss,” she welcomed, glancing up from the notebook she was writing in. I smiled and walked past towards the section where they kept a record of all previous year books. It was my idea that as a matter of public interest they might publish some of the history of the school in the year books. Maybe over the years I could piece together some sort of picture about the Shape’s and Edith.

Some of the earlier books contained a forward from Ms Cushing. It was always encouraging and very poignant. But there was very little revealed. There was nothing about the history, at least nothing about the original Allerdale Hall. Some of the newer additions had history about the construction of the school but they always seemed to neglect the original house itself. It was almost like the old house had been some sort of dirty little secret that nobody seemed willing to talk about. I put the editions back onto the shelf and start looking through the history section. Again, I found nothing of any use. The frustration that was growing inside me was tangible. I wanted to know. I was trying to find out what on earth happened here to make two such restless spirits, but at every turn I seemed to be coming up against obstacles. It was maddening. I reached up to pull down a book about the History of Cumbria when Linda’s bracelet snagged on my jumper. I untangled it from where it’s caught in the wool.

For a moment, I stared at the little silver charms, running them between my fingers. I was never very good at History. It always seemed to be too much about dates and places, things I was never really good at remembering. But I did remember something. That primary sources, evidence collected first hand, was always the most valuable amongst historians. Sure, you could never rule out bias, but someone who had been there at the event. I was in a unique position where I _did_ have the opportunity for first hand evidence. Thomas. I could take the bracelet off again tonight and he would visit. I could ask him questions, get him to explain everything that was going on.

I put the book back on the shelf and left the library. The rest of the day dragged by impossibly slow as I waited for the approach of the night. I graded a few tests and marked some essays. But I knew that I wasn’t really concentrating. It was like trying to read a book when you were too tired. I would read the same sentence over and over again and then realise that although my eyes were seeing the words, my brain wasn’t processing what was being said.

Eventually it was night time. I had done as much as I could for the week ahead. But I was too anxious to sleep. What about Lucille? What if she got to me before Thomas? She hadn’t hurt me yet, but as a scientist I knew the sample size was too small to make accurate conclusions from. Besides, just because something hadn’t happened yet, didn’t mean that it never would. There were too many uncertain variables.

I reached down into my bedside cabinet and drew out a small glass, curved bottle. My sister had given me it as a present before I’d left to come here. “For when the kids are too much,” she had said. Gin. I hadn’t opened it yet. Linda and I had considered it a few weeks ago around Halloween during the first half term break, but had decided against it. I cracked open the top and took a sniff. There was no scent. That’s the beauty of Gin. Tasteless, and mostly scentless. I took a small swig and shuddered as it burned its way down the back of my throat. I paused, then took another. And a third. I put the lid back on and put it away inside my cupboard.

I waited in the dark. I could feel the warmth of the alcohol start from the pit of my stomach and work its way up to my head where it rested behind my eyes. But still sleep alluded me. I tried to repeat monotonous phrases to myself. Tried to say the first ten elements of the periodic table over and over to bore my brain.

The floorboards of the room creaked and I sat up. My head spun quickly and I couldn’t tell if it was from my sudden transition from horizontal to vertical, the alcohol or a combination of the two.

He was standing there by the door, the way he appeared when he was in the world and not in my head. Gone was the confident, dark, sophisticated man. Instead here was the fragile and broken remains of his soul that refused to leave this world. Thomas.

“Why didn’t you come in a dream?” I asked the sad spectre. He raised heavy ochre eyes to meet mine. He didn't make a sound, but raised one stained arm up and points a marble finger at my bedside table. Towards the bracelet.

“I left if off for you,” I explained, “So that you could come to see me in my dreams. I have so many questions for you.”

He closed his eyes, the stone of his face crumpled in an expression of pain. He shook his head back and forth, the white tendrils of hair moving slowly in time with him. The finger still pointed to the bracelet.

I frowned and kicked off my blankets. I put my feet over the edge of the bed. “No, I want to talk to you.” Again, he just shook his head.

I stood up to walked towards him. If I could get close enough to touch him, perhaps I could convince him to write on my palm again. But as I did, black hands appeared on his shoulders and moved possessively over the tops of his arms. In the darkness, a shape that was more black than I had ever imagined emerged behind him. Lucille. The sister. The one who was intent on making my sleeping and waking hours a living nightmare. My heart beat between my ears, a constant patter that was far beyond anything of a normal rhythm. I stopped dead, watching her darkness move around him like a sinister cloud. I reached out and picked up the bracelet. She stopped. Her head turned to me and for the first time, I saw her face. It was small, but sharp, like their name. She looked like a fox, with high carved, almost skeletal cheekbones, a regal nose and chin. Her eyes beneath the black veil that she wore around her head where two beads of shining black. I held out the bracelet in front of me like a talisman. She tilted her head quickly to the side, a jarring and animalistic movement. I took a step towards her and she hissed, feral. What could possibly be causing her to have this sort of reaction? Was she trying to protect her brother? Did she think that I meant to hurt him in some way? I took another step forward.

She made a noise that sounded like the scream of a car breaking as she shrank back, removing her long talons from around him. She disappeared. Thomas’ face also distorted in pain too and I immediately stopped my advance. He opened his eyes and looked at me with heart wrenching sadness, before he too melted into the air.

“No,” I breathed, walking forward into the now empty space they had occupied. The air was impossibly cold. It pricked my skin and chilled my airways as I took in a deep shuddering breath. Defeated, I put the bracelet on and got back into bed.

If Thomas wasn’t going to talk to me, or being prevented to in some way by Lucille, then I would have to go back to the books. After lessons the next day I went back into the library to look for the book that I’d found on the history of Cumbria. I found the book and took it to one of the tables to read. Checking the contents page, I found a reference to Allerdale and flipped to it. There was a large illustration of the house as it had looked at its heyday. It was impressive, imposing even, with its large gothic spires and tall, narrow windows. But the chapter was a bust. It was about the history of the architect who had designed the house, about the crimson clay mines below, and about the history of the Sharpe family. All there was about Thomas and Lucille was a few sentences that alluded to their tragic deaths from the malfunction of the mining machine. Nothing I didn’t already know. With a sigh, I snapped the book closed and looked up just as Joe walked through the main door of the library. He carried a large stack of thin books that looked familiar. Yearbooks. He caught my eye, smiled and came over.

He nodded to the book that I was reading. “I see that we’re both thinking along the same lines.”

“There’s nothing useful in here,” I sighed, waving my hand at the book. “I checked the year books too. There’s nothing in them either.”

“I disagree. There’s something very interesting about the year books.” I frowned. He pulled out a chair and sat down at the table, setting his pile of books next to mine. “I’ve searched through the last twenty years of Allerdale.” He pulled out a book from the stack. 1967. He opened it at the forward. “This is the last forward that has been written by your doppelganger, Edith. She would have been in her late eighties.”

“I don’t get it. How is that useful information?”

“I’ve checked through the next eight years of yearbooks. There’s nothing more about her.” He paused and stared at me intently, as if willing me to come to the conclusion on my own. Ever the teacher. He was trying to get me to figure it out for myself. I searched my mind for the connection, but it wouldn’t come.

I threw my hands up in defeat. “I don’t know.”

Joe sighed, then leaned forward across the table. His voice was low, urgent. “There’s no obituary. No tribute, no: ‘Remembering our great founder’. Beth, I think Edith Cushing is still alive.”


	12. November 24-25th 1975

> _Letter from Alan McMichael to Edith Cushing, dated 25 th May, 1952._
> 
> _My dearest Edith,_
> 
> _It has been too long since your last letter. My Judith died last winter and I fear that I am not long behind her. They say it’s cancer. They tried to operate but they say that it did not work, though, I have a nice scar to show the grandchildren. It’s right next to the one that our mutual acquaintance Thomas delivered to me all those years ago. My youngest grandchild, Robbie, asked about it and that is what made me think of you._
> 
> _It’s hard to think that it’s been so long and that we are so changed. I still buy the New York Times every week to check the bestseller lists. How else am I to know when you publish something, for you never tell me anymore?_
> 
> _But I am digressing. I write because dying gives one a most startling sense of clarity and I wish to share my sudden wisdom._
> 
> _They say that you should never regret anything in life. As a side effect of being human I don’t think that is ever possible. But as long as those regrets are for things beyond our control, I believe they are perfectly acceptable. What’s not, is those things we do have influence over._
> 
> _It is not nor has it ever been my place to tell you how you should have lived your life. But I am an old man now, and old men are frequently forgiven for giving opinions they have no business giving. I know that when the ‘great matter’ happened, it was not the right time then, for you or for her. But Edith, for goodness sake, try to find her, and to tell her. Don’t make her a regret that you could have changed._
> 
> _I shall be travelling to Buffalo soon to see some of Eunice’s children, my nephew and niece and my new grandniece. It would mean so much to me to see you again._
> 
> _All my love._
> 
> _Alan._

* * *

I stared at Joe across the table as his words sunk in. _Still alive._

“But she must be… nearly a hundred?”

“I know, but it must be the truth. She’s too important a person in the history of the school for them not to have made a big deal of her death. I’ve been here for five years and she’s never been mentioned. Again, if she had passed away I feel like someone would have mentioned something.”

“Show me.” It wasn’t that I didn’t believe him, I just had to see for myself. Together we stared at the 1967 yearbook and read through her letter to the leaving class. There was nothing about her personal life as could be expected. It wished them well, encouraged them to follow their dreams, to never give up, the same way she had approached her writing. It was all very mundane. The next books were opened one after another in chronological order with each page meticulously combed up until the summer of this year just before I had joined the school. Joe was right. There was no further mention, for good or ill, of Edith Cushing. There was, however, an obituary for a beloved music teacher which seemed only to add weight behind Joe’s theory that Edith was still alive.

“So, how does this help us?” I wasn’t sure if he was talking to me or just thinking out loud. To be truthful, I couldn’t answer him regardless. Was there any point in trying to make contact with an old woman to tell her that by some freak of genetics I looked exactly as she had at my age? No. However, what was slightly more tempting was to tell her that the ghosts of her dead husband and sister-in-law were haunting me. “I wonder how we would get in contact with her,” he continued. A passing student shushed him cheekily. He gave her an accepting nod and lowered his voice. “After all, she would probably find it quite interesting that someone who works at her school looks exactly like her. Might give the old girl a bit of a laugh.”

“I feel like I would just be unnecessarily bothering an old lady,” I protested, closing the book as if to signal to him that I was done with the conversation.

He shrugged. “It’s your choice of course.” He started to stack the yearbooks back up into their correct order then picked them up. “Just think about it?”

I promised myself that I would, but I first had to explore the options that were a little closer to home than New York.

Once again I found myself alone in my room, well past lights out, waiting impatiently for my spectral visitors. Thomas hadn’t visited my dreams the night before. Was there something, or someone, that was preventing him? I had made sure the bracelet was well away from me. It couldn’t be that, though I was still unsure exactly how silver fitted into the equation. What power did a metal have over the supernatural anyway?

“Thomas?” I called out into the darkness. My voice, even in my own ears, was anxious and hesitant. What exactly was I calling him for? Was I still interested in finding out why I was the spitting image of his wife, or did I just want to see him again? “Thomas, are you there?”

My only answer was the restless creaking of the old building. There was something else that I could try, but I wasn’t sure how wise it would be. The seconds dragged by, enflaming my restlessness. I decided that at this point I would try anything; even the dangerous.

“Lucille?”

Would the sister come even if Thomas wouldn’t? I held my breath so as to be aware of any movement in the room. I concentrated, trying to feel for any change in the atmosphere. It was always cold near ghosts. I waited. Was it just my imagination or was the air near my right hand beginning to feel almost imperceptibly colder than the air by my right? I imagined that it was Thomas, trying his best to cross the divide, to reach out and touch me against all the odds. Then again, I was just as confident that there was absolutely nothing there at all and that my mind was simply playing tricks with me. My feet on the bare floor were beginning to become numb with the cold. _One more minute_ , I promised as I counted out the seconds in my head. One, two, three… By the time I reached sixty, my heart was heavy with disappointment. Where was he? Where were _they_? Finally, I gave up and retreated back to my bed. Just in case, I left the bracelet off, desperately hoping that Thomas or even the sister would visit my dreams. They didn’t.

I was distracted the next day through my lessons. Nothing made sense any more. I’d left the bracelet off but no-one had appeared. Had the last week of supernatural activity been a blip? Some cosmic alignment of planets giving those who have passed on the strength to make contact? Or was it simply all some great hallucination? I knew which one I would have put my money on as a rational person. But what even was rational anymore?

I was teaching the year sevens about the eye. They were busy playing with a few optical illusions that I had collected from magazines and from the back of cereal boxes, passing them around, enjoying the way the cleverly drawn images and patterns played tricks with their eyes. I was setting up a camera at the front of the room. There were a lot of similar features of an eye about the camera and it always made my life easier if I could find some comparison in my teaching to something they were already familiar with. I also had the great idea of taking a photo of them that I could save and present the same class with when they graduated. They could even put it in their yearbook.

With a few words I got the attention of the class again and began to explain the anatomy of the eye. I drew a diagram onto the board with practiced chalk strokes. With dutiful compliance, they began copying it into their exercise books. As it always did, the explanation of how an image enters our eyes upside down and is corrected by the actions of our brain caused a bit of a stir among those who weren’t already aware.

Next, I got out the camera and began to show them how the bits of the camera and the eye matched up. In the corner of my mind I remembered about Mrs Hall’s husband and his photography. Perhaps in the future I could ask him to come in and talk about the camera instead. He probably knew much more about it then I did. Maybe even just a conversation with him could give me more detail that I might possibly work into my lessons.

We discussed the links between the two things. The photographic film on the back of the camera, where the light stained the chemicals was rather like how the retina on the back of the eye worked. The lens, an oblong disc of jelly that refracted the light worked in pretty much the exact same way as its namesake in the camera.

I picked my personal Pentax up from the desk, a gift from several birthdays ago, and told them about my idea. I wasn’t entirely sure what sort of reaction I had been expecting, but what happened next certainly wasn’t up there with any of the predictions I could have possibly made. The excited chatter was interrupted by the loud scraping of a stool as Lucy, the girl who’d been taken to me with a nightmare a few nights ago, leapt to her feet.

“I don’t want my picture taken,” she shouted. Everyone turned their heads to stare at her with a shocked and confused silence. If this had been an older group of girls I was sure that one of them would have led the way in passing a sharp tongued comment, or at least been the first to start a wave of laughter. But these were the youngest, most of them only eleven, still trying to find their feet and voices. The silence dragged on as my brain stalled.

“That’s okay,” I eventually said, watching her with eyes that felt wide like a bug. “You don’t have to. Come and stand by me, out of the shot if you prefer.”

Slowly, as though the weight of everyone judging her sudden and brash actions were dragging her down, she made her way up to the front of the room and stood, near but not exactly beside me.

“Is everyone else ready?” I asked, forcing normality into my voice. The girls resumed the excited chatter and arranged themselves into a rough crowd in the middle of the room, having pushed their chairs and desks out of the way.

I counted down from three and held my camera up to my eye. Without being asked to the girls all broke into a unison call of ‘cheese’. I pressed the shutter and the camera whirred into life. There was a flash and a click and the photo was taken. Out of instinct, I turned the wheel that moved the film on, ready for the next time that I wanted to use it. I replaced the lens cap as everyone burst into another flurry of chatter as they returned to their seats.

“I just… don’t like pictures,” Lucy whispered before walking back to her stool, head lowered.

“Miss?”

I called the class to quiet so that I could answer the question. Maggie lowered her hand and waited until the rest of the class had stopped talking before she asked, “So, you showed us the optical illusions earlier, they were pictures and patterns that can trick our eyes?” I nodded and she continued, “Can you trick a camera, the same way you can trick your eyes?”

Again, I nodded enthusiastically. “You can indeed. There is a very famous set of photos called the Cottingley Fairies and they have fooled a lot of people into believing the existence of fairies. But they’re most likely just paper cut outs. There was also a camera technique called double exposure where you would expose film paper to light twice and both images would appear. Sometimes it was used to fake ghost photographs.”

I stopped and looked down at my camera. I’d read an article once in a newspaper. They had asked for people to send in any pictures that they had taken that had shown ‘ghosts’ and had been inundated with photographs so much so they had published an entire book of them. I’d read it for amusement, marvelling at the different filmographic techniques that they must have used to fake the photographs. But now, given everything that I had seen in the last few weeks I suddenly began to doubt everything that I thought I had known about it. I picked up the camera and studied it. What if the camera could actually see what my eyes couldn’t? What if I could use this to capture those who were no longer so keen on making themselves known to me? Perhaps this would be the proof that I needed to know that I wasn’t actually crazy. Tangible evidence, the friend of science.  

“Miss?”

I looked up, yanked back into the room and at the faces that were peering curiously at me as I emerged from my daydream.

“Sorry, where were we?” The bell rang.

At lunch I escaped up to my bedroom. There needed to be good light for photographs so there was no way that I could do it after school had finished. It was winter and the light would be too low. Again, I called out to Thomas in the emptiness. In the watery light of the winter’s day, the atmosphere was all but gone. No longer did my heart begin to flutter at every creak of the floorboard or breath of wind that creaked through the room.

Without any more delays, I started taking photos of my room. It was a long shot, but I had to try. Even if it didn’t work, at least now I would have photos to remember my room and my time at Allerdale.

I positioned myself into the corner of my room so as to get as full a view as possible and snapped the picture. Part of the magic of photography was not knowing how the shot had turned out until it was developed, but it was so infuriating right now. I just wanted to know immediately. Was Thomas in the room with me right now? Was Lucille? If they were, why had they stopped appearing? There were too many questions. Questions that I could never hope to have the answer to. I made myself a promise there and then that if the pictures all turned up blank that I would give up the pursuit. Put it down to a freak accident. A brief break in my sanity from the stress of the first year of teaching. The warning bell rang and I knew that I would only have a few minutes to finish up and get back to my room before the afternoon lessons began. Feeling very stupid, I held out my camera at arm’s length, straining my finger at an almost uncomfortable angle to press the shutter release. What if it wasn’t the room, but me that they were interested in? Perhaps getting a picture of myself might tempt some form of contact. I was clutching at straws now. But the scientific method was nothing if not thorough. It was just disappointing that I would have to wait until the weekend again before I would get a chance to go send the pictures away. Then it would be a further week before I would get the developed pictures back. Maybe longer, Cumbria wasn’t the most technologically advanced place in Britain. They might have to be sent quite far away. The suspense would drive me insane.

I made my way back through the building towards the science block when I passed a noticeboard. A miracle shone back at me from the buff paper tacked onto the green felt board.

_“Photography Club. Room 14. Thursdays from 3-4pm.”_

If there was a club in the school, it meant that the art department had a dark room and the means to develop film. It meant that it would be a matter of _days_ not _weeks_ before I got my pictures. The final bell rang and I made a dash to my room, shooing girls to their classes as I did.

 


End file.
